Removal of oxalic acid, oxamic acid and aniline by a combined photolysis and ozonation process

Aniline (ANL), an aromatic amine, oxalic acid (OXA) and oxamic acid (OMA), short-chain carboxylic acids, were chosen as model organic pollutants for testing the combined effect of neat photolysis and ozonation in the treatment of aqueous effluents. In order to better understand the results, single ozonation and neat photolysis were also carried out. OXA has a high refractory character relatively to single ozonation and neat photolysis only accounted for 26% conversion of OXA after 2 h of reaction. On the other hand, OXA complete degradation was observed in less than an hour when ozone and light were used simultaneously. Despite OMA, a compound never studied before by a combined ozonation and photolysis treatment, being highly refractory to oxidation, more than 50% was removed by photo-ozonation after 3 h of reaction. In the case of ANL, both single ozonation and photo-ozonation resulted in 100% removal in a short reaction period due to the high reactivity of ozone to attack this type of molecules; however, only the combined method leads to efficient mineralization (89%) after 3 h of reaction. A significant synergetic effect was observed in the degradation of the selected contaminants by the simultaneous use of ozone and light, since the mineralization rate of combined method is higher than the sum of the mineralization rates of the individual treatments. The promising results observed in the degradation of the selected contaminants are paving the way to the application of photo-ozonation in the treatment of wastewater containing this type of pollutants.