Pilot Plant Results with Three Different Types of UV Lamps for Advanced Oxidation

Abstract

Three different types of ultraviolet lamps were tested for the advanced oxidation process application on pre-treated surface water in a pilot plant. The pilot setup consisted of three parallel reactors with either medium pressure, low pressure or dielectric barrier discharge UV lamps. Four model compounds (atrazine, bromacil, ibuprofen and N-nitroso-dimethylamine (NDMA)) and 0, 5 or 10 ppm hydrogen peroxide were dosed. Low pressure lamps were shown to have the lowest energy demand, calculated as electrical energy per order, followed by dielectric barrier discharge lamps and then medium pressure lamps. Medium pressure lamps gave the highest formation of genotoxic activity and nitrite formation, whereas no formation of genotoxic activity was observed for either of the other lamp types.