Electrochemical and Sono-Electrochemical Treatments of Wastewater Containing Paracetamol in the Presence of Chloride

Abstract

One of the major problems we face is water pollution caused by pharmaceutical products, particularly paracetamol (PCM). This leads to an increasingly high mortality rate due to various diseases caused by these pollutants. The use of effective treatment methods for the degradation of these pollutants is essential. To this end, we studied the influence of chloride on the electrochemical and sono-electrochemical treatment of paracetamol using a boron-doped diamond (BDD) electrode. During this study, the concentration of paracetamol was monitored by differential pulse voltammetry. Studies characterizing this electrode have shown its quasi-metallic nature and its ability to detect trace amounts of paracetamol. In addition, after 1.5 hours of treatment, degradation rates of 65%, 90%, and 96% were determined in the presence of 0 mM and 100 mM chloride for electrochemistry and 100 mM chloride for sono-electrochemistry, respectively. It is therefore clear that chloride contribute to the paracetamol degradation, given the above results. These results highlight the potential of sono-electrochemical treatment as a sustainable and efficient approach for the remediation of pharmaceutical pollutants in wastewater. Our future work will focus on the development of highly sensitive and economically accessible detection methods.