Degradation of drugs in water with advanced oxidation processes and ozone

•The degradation of a mixture of drugs with ozone has been studied in this work.•More than 99% of compounds degradation was reached and up to 60% of mineralization.•Ozonation by pressure swing adsorption technique was the treatment used.•The use of this technology did not generated toxic compounds.

The aim of this paper is to assess the degradation of a mixture of ibuprofen and clofibric acid and to study the mineralization and toxicity following ozone treatment. To this end, a comparison is presented of the experimental results obtained from ozone treatment using atmospheric air as the feed gas (Experiment I, [O3] = 15 gN/m3), with and without addition of H2O2, and those obtained under the same conditions but using concentrated oxygen as the feed gas, obtained by pressure swing adsorption technology (Experiment II, [O3] = 200 gN/m3). All tests were conducted using a pilot scale reactor.Under (Experiment II) conditions, degradation exceeded 99% and up to 60% mineralization was achieved for initial compound concentrations, and hydraulic retention time was reduced by 75% compared to (Experiment I).The results of toxicity tests show through increasing the production of ozone gas in (Experiment II), toxicity was eliminated at initial study concentrations of ≤1 mg/l for all treatment times studied.