Glyphosate degradation in water employing the H2O2/UVC process

Glyphosate is the organophosphate herbicide most widely used in the world. Any form of spill or discharge, even if unintentional, can be transferred to the water due to its high solubility. The combination of hydrogen peroxide and UV radiation could be a suitable option to decrease glyphosate concentration to acceptable limits. In this work, the effects of initial pH, hydrogen peroxide initial concentration, and incident radiation in glyphosate degradation were studied. The experimental device was a cylinder irradiated with two tubular, germicidal lamps. Conversion of glyphosate increases significantly from pH = 3–7. From this value on, the increase becomes much less noticeable. The reaction rate depends on the initial herbicide concentration and has an optimum plateau of a hydrogen peroxide to glyphosate molar concentration ratio between 7 and 19. The expected non linear dependence on the irradiation rate was observed. The identification of critical reaction intermediaries, and the quantification of the main end products were possible and it led to propose a plausible degradation path. The achieved quantification of the mineralization extent is a positive indicator for the possible application of a rather simple technology for an in situ solution for some of the problems derived from the intensive use of glyphosate.