Pesticides and Ozofractionation: An Investigation to Remove Organic and Inorganic Contaminants from Industrial Wastewater

In the last 50 years a significant amount of research has been carried out on the treatment of pesticides and industrial wastewater using physicochemical methods. However, ozofractionation has not been investigated as a means to remove pesticides from wastewater, possibly because it is more typically associated with the treatment of water in aquariums. Therefore, the present study was undertaken to assess the impact of ozofractionation on pesticide-contaminated industrial wastewater. A sample was collected from a stormwater holding tank at a pesticide manufacturing site in Australia containing chlorpyrifos, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE), arsenic and zinc. After preliminary analysis, the sample was subjected to ozofractionation and promising results were observed. Chlorpyrifos, DDT, DDE, arsenic and zinc concentrations were 7.2 µg/L, 108 µg/L, 9.5 µg/L, 0.14 mg/L and 0.44 mg/L before treatment and reduced to