Treatment Efficiency of 17 Alpha-Methyltestosterone in Aqueous Solution by Advanced Oxidation Processes

Abstract

This research aimed to study the optimum conditions for removal of 17 alpha-methyltestosterone (MT) by using advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), i.e. photolysis, ozonation and photocatalytic ozonation, were employed to treat MT at the initial concentrations of 3.0 mg/L. The results show the optimum conditions for treating MT by AOPs: (1) photolysis at pH condition did not affect the efficiency of MT treatment, it can treat over 95% of all pH ranges until cannot be measured (detection limit of HPLC is 0.1 ppm) within 30 min, (2) ozonation at pH 5.0 and ozone dose 400 mg/hr; this optimum conditions can treat 72.9% within 60 min, and (3) photocatalytic ozonation at pH 5.0 and ozone dose 400 mg/hr can treat until cannot be measured within 15 min. For the comparison of efficacy of all processes, it was found that photocatalytic ozonation was the most efective process for MT treatment followed by photolysis and ozonation, respectively. Moreover, the kinetic of all 3 processes was found to be the first-order reaction.