Degradation of carbamazepine (CBZ), a widely detected recalcitrant pharmaceutical in sewage treatment plant (STP) effluent, has been studied in the present work using combination of hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) and advanced oxidation processes (AOPs). Due to its recalcitrant nature, it cannot be removed effectively by the conventional wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) which make CBZ a pharmaceutical of very high environmental relevance and impact as well as stressing the need for developing new treatment schemes. In the present study, the effect of inlet pressure (3-5bar) and operating pH (3-11) on the extent of degradation have been initially studied with an objective of maximizing the degradation using HC alone. The established optimum conditions as pressure of 4bar and pH of 4 resulted in maximum degradation of CBZ as 38.7%. The combined approaches of HC with ultraviolet irradiation (HC+UV), hydrogen peroxide (HC+H₂O₂), ozone (HC+O₃) as well as combination of HC, H₂O₂ and O₃ (HC+H₂O₂+O₃) have been investigated under optimized pressure and operating pH. It was observed that a significant increase in the extent of degradation is obtained for the combined operations of HC+H₂O₂+O₃, HC+O₃, HC+H₂O₂, and HC+UV with the actual extent of degradation being 100%, 91.4%, 58.3% and 52.9% respectively. Kinetic analysis revealed that degradation of CBZ fitted into first order kinetics model for all the approaches. The processes were also compared on the basis of cavitational yield and also in terms of total treatment cost. Overall, it has been demonstrated that combined process of HC, H₂O₂ and O₃ can be effectively used for treatment of wastewater containing CBZ.

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