Removal of phthalic acid esters from water by advanced catalytic oxidation process

Generally, phthalic acid esters(PAEs) are considered to be endocrine disrupting chemicals(EDCs). This substance is widely used in plasticizers, cosmetics, etc. PAEs would give rise to malformation, cancerization and mutation as well as possess quasi/anti-estrogen activity and quasi/resistance-thyroid hormone activity. PAEs could spread to the environment easily and be detected in the soil, air and water. They are common pollutants in the environment, which pose serious threats to both human health and the ecological environment. As a result, PAEs have attracted widespread attention at home and abroad. This paper summarizes the physi-chemical properties and toxic effects of PAEs and analyses the pollution status in natural water, groundwater and wastewater. The work also discusses many recent methods developed to remove PAEs, such as enhanced coagulation, adsorption, membrane treatment, biological treatment, advanced oxidation process, etc. Advanced oxidation technology has attracted much attention and developed rapidly because of it's ability to remove different kinds of organic pollutants quickly and efficiently from drinking water and sewage. This article introduces the degradation of PAEs in water mainly using advanced oxidation technology which includes the catalytic wet peroxide oxidation, the catalytic ozone oxidation, photocatalytic oxidation, ultrasonic and microwave assisted catalytic oxidation and advanced nanometer catalytic oxidation. Fenton catalytic oxidation process could produce highly reactive hydroxyl radicals by adding catalyst and UVradiation in the process of oxidation. This method could achieve the highest oxidation efficiency as well as degrade PAEs into non-toxic harmless chemicals completely and non-selectively. Although application of the catalyst in advanced oxidation process can improve the oxidation efficiency and the degradation degree greatly, this method needs a huge amount of catalyst and energy and also influenced by pH value. Additionally, the research of this removal method is mostly confined to the laboratory stage and fails to be put into large-scale industrial applications, which needs further development and innovation. As a result, development of new catalyst of high efficiency, improvement of selectivity of catalyst, optimization of reaction conditions and reactors of catalytic oxidation as well as incorporation with other technology are the development direction of PAEs pollution control technology.