
S. MalatoPlataforma Solar de Almería
S. Malato
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Publications (476)
Pilot-scale results have shown that solar photo-Fenton at acid or circumneutral pH are promising tertiary or quaternary wastewater treatment in real effluents. The implementation of solar-based technologies for water treatment led to the development of photoreactors based on compound parabolic collectors (CPCs) and more recently, the raceway pond p...
This study assessed removal of microcontaminants (MCs) from natural water (NW) using iron nanoparticles extracted from olive mill wastewater (ZVI-OMW), an agro-industrial waste product, combined with oxidants under natural solar radiation. The specific effects of corrosion, adsorption and solar photolysis, and of H2O2, S2O8²⁻, carbonates and ZVI-OM...
A new immobilized photocatalyst based on the organic compound rose Bengal supported on glass wool (RB_GW) has been investigated in this study for water disinfection. The proof of principle has been carried out in simulated secondary effluent of urban wastewater spiked with E. coli and E. faecalis (at 106 CFU/mL initial concentration) and in a solar...
Landfill leachate is a strongly polluted complex wastewater generated due to rain percolation, which treatment is not completely solved, yet. Its non-biodegradable character makes it necessary to design a specific treatment train by combining conventional and advanced processes for reducing operating costs, allowing its reuse and potentially recove...
The main goal of the present study was to explore pilot-scale combination of H2 generation with simultaneous water disinfection or decontamination. Performance of a TiO2–CuO mixture for solar-to-hydrogen (STH) conversion was studied, focusing on treatment optimization (catalyst dose, proportion of semiconductors in the mixture and concentration of...
The aim of this study was to evaluate a new immobilized photocatalyst, Rose Bengal supported on glass wool (GW_RB), for simultaneous wastewater decontamination and disinfection. Preliminary tests were carried out in a solar simulator with 30 W/m2 irradiation average. Isotonic water (with 9 g/L NaCl) and simulated TAP water (at different pHs) spiked...
This work deals with microcontaminants (MCs) removal by natural solar zero-valent iron (ZVI) process at natural pH in actual matrices. Commercial ZVI microspheres were selected as ZVI source and hydrogen peroxide and persulfate were used as oxidant agents. The experimental plan comprised the evaluation of sulphates and carbonates/bicarbonates effec...
The development of treatment trains for pollutant degradation employing zerovalent iron has been attracting a lot of interest in the last few years. This approach consists of pre-treatment only with zerovalent iron, followed by a Fenton oxidation taking advantage of the iron ions released in the first step. In this work, the advantages/disadvantage...
Solar photo-Fenton (SPF) at circumneutral pH with ethylenediamine-N,N'-disuccinic acid (EDDS) in raceway pond reactor was compared to a well-stablished process (ozonation) in the degradation five contaminant of emerging concern (CECs, namely Caffeine, Carbamazepine, Diclofenac, Sulfamethoxazole and Trimethoprim) at the initial concentration of 100...
Contamination of natural water (NW) by emerging contaminants has been widely pointed out as one of the main challenges to ensure high-quality drinking water. Thus, the effectiveness of a solar-driven free chlorine advanced oxidation process simultaneously investigating the elimination of six organic microcontaminants (OMCs) and three bacteria from...
A photocatalytic Ce-Y-ZrO2/TiO2 ultrafiltration membrane was successfully prepared on a ZrO2/SiC support by a modified sol-gel process. The top active layer is 2 μm thick, uniform and defect-free. The membrane presented a molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) of 19 kDa (equivalent to a pore size of 6 nm) and a high pure water permeability, 160 Lm⁻²h⁻¹bar...
In this study, a full cycle of agricultural reuse of agro-food wastewater (synthetic fresh-cut wastewater, SFCWW) at pilot plant scale has been investigated. Treated SFCWW by ozonation and two solar processes (H2O2/solar, Fe³⁺-EDDHA/H2O2/solar) was used to irrigate two raw-eaten crops (lettuce and radish) grown in peat. Two foodborne pathogens (E....
Solar zerovalent iron (ZVI) was studied at circumneutral pH in combination with hydrogen peroxide and persulfate for removal of imidacloprid as a model contaminant in natural water. Three commercial ZVI sources, steel wool (ZVI-SW) and two iron micro-powders (ZVI-MS and ZVI-S) were independently evaluated. First, different ZVI corrosion conditions...
Solar processes (sunlight/H2O2, solar photo-Fenton with EDDS at neutral pH) were compared to a consolidated technology (ozonation) in the inactivation of target bacteria (E. coli, Salmonella spp and Enterococcus spp) under realistic conditions (real secondary treated urban wastewater (WW), pilot scale reactors, natural sunlight) to evaluate their p...
New titania-reduced graphene oxide (TiO2-rGO) nanocomposites have been studied to assess their application in the solar assisted photodegradation of a complex mixing of pesticides (pyrimethanil, isoproturon, alachlor and methomyl) at solar pilot plant, opening the opportunity to extend the use of these hybrid photocatalysts to complex wastewater ef...
The application of electrochemical processes for wastewater treatment has increase significantly in the last two decades. However, most of the works are focused on lab-scale systems testing in saline simulated solutions spiked with a reference organic compound, evidencing the scarcity of studies on actual wastewaters through a more realistic practi...
Near-neutral photo-Fenton at low iron concentration on open reactors. • Low contaminant level simulation approximates kinetic values to real effluents. • Higher treatment time on real MTWWP effluent than on natural water • Reaction's inhibition mainly to DOM's light attenuation than inorganic scav-enging • Aluminized surface would improve treatment...
This study aimed to assess the removal efficiency of microcontaminants (namely: acetaminophen, diclofenac, carbamazepine, caffeine, sulfamethoxazole, trimethoprim) spiked in water by solar-driven photo-Fenton using Fe:EDDS (1:1), focusing especially on improving operating parameters. These parameters were first studied at lab scale (1 - 4 L): (i) F...
This study investigated the removal of six representative pharmaceuticals (PHCs), including dipyrone (DIP), diazepam (DZP), fluoxetine (FXT), paracetamol (PCT), propranolol (PPN), and progesterone (PRG) at 500 µg L⁻¹ in raw hospital wastewater (RHWW) treated by solar photo-Fenton with Fe³⁺-EDDS in a pilot raceway pond reactor (RPR). The effect of t...
This study addresses the degradation of carbon-PTFE cathodes conforming a commercial plate-and-frame cell from ElectroCell with a Nb-BDD anode. Cell is arranged within an electrochemical pilot plant designed for treating wastewaters by electrochemical Fenton-like processes, thus an efficient electrocatalytic production of H2O2 is necessary to guara...
Application of photo-Fenton for wastewater reuse is a hot-topic research activity for defining alternative water sources. In sunny water-stressed countries, solar irradiation is under study as a sustainable pollution-free energy source for powering photo-Fenton water treatment. In solar photo-Fenton, water containing iron and H2O2 is irradiated to...
This review explored the latest progress (since 2017) in solar photocatalysis for water decontamination and disinfection, including three sections focused on decontamination by heterogeneous photocatalysis, decontamination by solar photo-Fenton and disinfection. Semiconductor (SC) heterogeneous photocatalysis is still the most extended area of rese...
World is facing an environmental crisis and industrial awareness regarding their wastewaters is gaining strength. By treating them, water footprint can be reduced allowing their recycle and reuse, as well as recovering substances with added value. This work reports the pre-treatment of non-biodegradable elderberry agro-industrial wastewater at pilo...
Simultaneous removal of contaminants of emerging concern and bacteria inactivation in simulated municipal wastewater effluent (SMWW) through solar advanced oxidation processes, namely sunlight/H2O2 and solar photo-Fenton with Ethylenediamine-N, N′-disuccinic acid (EDDS) at neutral pH was investigated. Process efficiency was evaluated in terms of (i...
This study focused on the effect of salinity on the performance of a pilot-scale nanofiltration (NF) for preconcentration of microcontaminants (MCs) in combination with solar photo-Fenton or photo-Fenton-like treatment for their elimination from NF permeate and concentrate streams. Photo-Fenton was carried out in a solar simulator at pH of 3 and at...
Most advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) are based on combination of oxidants, catalysts and radiation. Main disadvantages of these processes are their high energy consumption and operation costs. The use of solar radiation could be a way to overcome these drawbacks, but only two processes fit with this approach: heterogeneous photocatalysis with s...
Olive mill wastewater (OMW) appears as an interesting and innovative natural alternative to synthetic chelating agents of iron in solar photo-Fenton processes at circumneutral pH due to its high polyphenol content, valorizing wastewater typically found in sunny countries. The aim of this work was the reuse of OMW for the elimination of other recalc...
During the last decades, many water treatment processes have been proposed to deal with the increasing water quality requirements demanded for the urban wastewater effluents (UWWE). Among them, the so-called Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs) include a wide range of technologies based on the generation of very reactive and non-selective radical sp...
Comparison of electrochemical processes at pilot plant scale for the elimination of organic microcontaminants in actual urban wastewater treatment plant secondary effluents pre-treated by nanofiltration ([Cl⁻] = 1100–2000 mg L⁻¹) membranes (for reducing total volume to be treated and increase water salinity), has been addressed. Anodic oxidation (A...
Up-scaling of solar processes for water purification is a key challenge for their implementation at industrial scale on the agro-food sector. Benefits of using flow-tubular reactors provided with Compound Parabolic Collector mirrors has been previously demonstrated, nevertheless some techno-economic aspects still being unknown.
This study shows a c...
The challenge of providing good-quality reclaimed water free from contaminants of emerging concern, even at small concentrations, i.e., microcontaminants (MCs), and pathogens is one of the main hot topics worldwide. UVC-based advanced oxidation processes, using in situ production of strong oxidizing radicals, such as HO˙ and SO4˙⁻, have shown high...
Two TiO2-rGO nanocomposites were prepared by hydrothermal method from commercial TiO2 (P25 and Hombikat UV100, HBK). In both cases TiO2 nanoparticles appeared intimate and homogeneously distributed on rGO surface, but forming a dense network in P25-rGO nanocomposite, and a more open structure in HBK-rGO. Zeta potential and particle size distributio...
A semi-empirical model of the heat-activated and iron-activated persulfate processes applied to the removal of carbamazepine in water at low concentration (0.0025 mM) has been proposed and validated. In the heat-activation experimental series that was carried out at pH 3 varying temperature from 25ºC to 65ºC, acid-activation of persulfate showed an...
The efficiency of solar photo-Fenton treatment is related to ambient conditions, as it depends on solar irradiance levels and operation temperature, consequently, it is highly influenced by plant location. In this context, solar photo-Fenton feasibility in three Sunbelt cities (Tabernas -Spain-, Arica -Chile- and Doha -Qatar-) for the treatment of...
Industrial wastewaters characterized by its high content in organics and conductivity entails a challenge for conventional treatments due to its low biodegradability. Electro-oxidative processes have been successfully applied for the treatment of this kind of wastewaters achieving high organics and ammonia removal. The degradation process is execut...
Raceway Pond Reactors (RPRs) have arisen as an interesting and feasible scaling-up option for treating substantial amount of wastewater by solar photo-Fenton process, a technology with short-term perspective due to its high contaminants of emerging concern (CEC) removal efficiency associated with a low reagents’ consumption (Fe and H2O2) and differ...
Conventional urban wastewater treatment plants (UWTPs) are poorly effective in the removal of most contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), including antibiotics, antibiotic resistant bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes (ARB&ARGs). These contaminants result in some concern for the environment and human health, in particular if UWTPs effluents...
In this research, the capability of ozonation and peroxone treatment for the simultaneous disinfection and decontamination of wash water from the fresh-cut industry has been investigated at pilot plant scale (10 L). The removal efficiency of six organic microcontaminants (OMCs) (four of them priority substances) and the inactivation of two foodborn...
Conventional wastewater treatments are not usually effective in the remediation of specific landfill leachates due to their high content in toxic and recalcitrant compounds. Advanced and intensive treatments are needed for the decontamination and possible recycling of these effluents. Here, the combination of advanced oxidation processes (solar pho...
The effect of the UV-C/free chlorine (FC) process on the removal of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) from real urban wastewater as well as the effect of UV-C radiation on the formation of trihalomethanes (THMs) compared to FC process alone was investigated. Unlike of FC process, UV-C/FC was really effective in the degradation of the target C...
The removal of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) from urban wastewater treatment plants (UWTPs) is really important to minimize the risk for human health and environment. In this study, the homogeneous advanced oxidation process (AOP) UV-C/free chlorine (UV-C/FC) was investigated at pilot scale in the degradation of a mixture of four CECs, in...
This work presents for the first time a tool for the design of continuous raceway pond reactors to remove contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) from WWTP secondary effluents by solar photo-Fenton process at neutral pH. The effects of the hydraulic residence time (HRT) and the liquid depth on the treatment capacity were studied, the availability o...
A CuO + TiO2 mixture, based on two commercial and well characterized CuO and TiO2 photocatalyst, has been used to produce hydrogen by solar light irradiation and in presence of different organic compounds (methanol, glycerol, formic acid, and the components of a wastewater coming from the biodiesel industry) acting as sacrificial electron donors. T...
This work reports on the light-induced heterogeneous photodegradation of four micro-contaminants (MCs): Carbamazepine (C), Flumequine (F), Ibuprofen (I), and Sulfamethoxazole (S), using two different heterogeneous advanced oxidation processes. The first one is the semiconductor photocatalysis, run in the presence of the suspension of a home prepare...
This paper contains a multidisciplinary approach that will contribute to design and properly evaluate a treatment line for complex biorecalcitrant wastewaters. To demonstrate this approach a specific industrial wastewater (cork boiling wastewater, CBW) was used. A treatment line based on a coagulation-flocculation step followed by an Advanced Oxida...
The guest editor introduces a selection of papers presented at the 10th European Meeting on Solar Chemistry & Photocatalysis: Environmental Applications – SPEA10.
The main objective of this work is to compare various Advanced Oxidation Processes based on solar photo-Fenton at circumneutral pH (by adding EDDS as iron complexing agent), such as solar photo-electro-Fenton process and solar ozonation in combination with Fenton like processes (O 3 /Fe ²⁺ /H 2 O 2 , O 3 /Fe ³⁺ /H 2 O 2 and Solar/Fe ³⁺ /O 3 /H 2 O...
In this study, the use of a commercial iron fertilizer (Fe³⁺-EDDHA) employed to remediate iron chlorosis in agriculture has been investigated as a promoting bactericidal agent in solar wastewater disinfection processes. Two water matrices: isotonic water (IW) and synthetic fresh-cut wastewater (SFCWW) and two bacterial strains (E. coli O157:H7 and...
The present study shows the results of solar photo-Fenton oxidation of paracetamol (PCT) and amoxicillin (AMX). Fe 2 (SO 4 ) 3 was used as the source of iron and EDDS as the iron complexing agent, employing different doses of hydrogen peroxide. Two aqueous matrices, a synthetic wastewater and real wastewater from El Ejido WWTP effluent (Almeria) we...
This paper presents for the first time the treatment of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in a systematic study in different municipal wastewater treatment plants (MWWTPs) of the Mediterranean area, more than 1000 km away. Solar photo-Fenton process at neutral pH with Fe ³⁺ -EDDS has been demonstrated to be very efficient under controlled con...
Urban wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are among the main anthropogenic sources for the release of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) into the environment, which can result in toxic and adverse effects on aquatic organisms and consequently on humans. Unfortunately, WWTPs are not designed to remove CECs and secondary (e.g., conventional acti...
The degradation of trimethoprim (TMP) was investigated in a compound parabolic collector (CPC) pilot scale reactor. P25 TiO2 was employed as the photocatalyst, while sodium persulfate (SPS) was activated by solar light to generate reactive radicals. Experiments were performed in three matrices, namely natural water, municipal wastewater treatment p...
The potential of polyphenols, present in olive mill wastewater (OMW), to act as iron chelators in photo-Fenton reaction without water acidification for the treatment of different microcontaminants in water has been studied. OMW containing 6.3 g/L of phenols has been dosed from 1:100 to 1:1500 in water containing 200 μg/L of terbutryn, chlorfenvinph...
Scarcity of water and concerns about the ecotoxicity of microcontaminants are driving an interest in the use of advanced tertiary processes in wastewater treatment plants. However, the life cycle environmental implications of these treatments remain uncertain. To address this knowledge gap, this study evaluates through life cycle assessment the fol...
This manuscript summarizes the successful start-up and operation of a hybrid eco-engineered water treatment system, at pilot scale. The pilot unit, with 100 L capacity, has been devised for the efficient electrocatalytic production of H2O2 at an air-diffusion cathode, triggering the formation of [rad]OH from Fenton's reaction with added Fe²⁺ cataly...
Photo-Fenton is a solar disinfection technology widely demonstrated to be effective to inactivate microorganisms in water by the combined effect of photoactivated iron species and the direct action of solar photons. Nevertheless, the precipitation of iron as ferric hydroxide at basic pH is the main disadvantage of this process. Thus, challenge in p...
In the last decades, the development of advanced analytical techniques has revealed the presence of micro-contaminants (MCs) in effluents from municipal wastewater treatment plants (MWTPs), which represents a significant challenge to wastewater reclamation as biological treatments attain only partial removal of MCs. The application of tertiary trea...
This paper presents, for first time, a mechanistic model of the solar photo-Fenton process at neutral pH with the Fe³⁺-EDDS complex for micropollutant removal, taking into account irradiance and reactor geometry. Due to its high photon absorptivity, this biodegradable complex allows high percentages of micropollutant removal to be achieved for shor...
Cork boiling wastewater is a very complex mixture of naturally occurring compounds leached and partially oxidized during the boiling cycles. The effluent generated is recalcitrant and could cause a significant environmental impact. Moreover, if this untreated industrial wastewater enters a municipal wastewater treatment plant it could hamper or red...
The main purpose of this pilot plant study was to compare degradation of five microcontaminants (MCs) (antipyrine, carbamazepine, caffeine, ciprofloxacin and sulfamethoxazole at 100 µg/L) by solar photo-Fenton mediated by EDDS and solar/Fe:EDDS/S2O82-. The effects of the Fe:EDDS ratio (1:1 and 1:2), initial iron species (Fe(II) or Fe(III) at 0.1 mM...
This work reports a study on the reactivity of polymeric carbon nitride (PCN) and PCN-H2O2 adduct samples for sunlight photocatalytic selective oxidation reactions. The characterization of these materials was reported in a previous paper where the reactivity towards the partial oxidation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) was studied by using two dif...
The aim of this work was to investigate the treatment of the artificial sweetener saccharin (SAC) in a solar compound parabolic collector pilot plant by means of the photo-Fenton process at pH 2.8. Olive mill wastewater (OMW) was used as iron chelating agent to avoid acidification of water at pH 2.8. For comparative purposes, Ethylenediamine-N, N-d...
To run the photo-Fenton process at circumneutral pH as a tertiary wastewater treatment, the use of chelating agents, such as ethylenediamine disuccinic acid (EDDS), has been proposed. For the design and optimization of photocatalytic reactors, the concept of volumetric rate of photon absorption (VRPA) is very useful, since it combines the effects o...
An analytical method was developed and validated for the determination of ten pesticides in sewage sludge coming from an agro-food industry. The method was based on the application of Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged, and Safe (QuEChERS) extraction for solid sewage sludge and SPE extraction for sludge aqueous phase, followed by liquid chromato...
Two different types of Carbon-containing TiO2 photocatalysts were studied in depth. A hybrid TiO2-C spherical material was prepared by solvothermal synthesis from furfural and titanium isopropoxide and compared to a binary TiO2-activated carbon composite prepared using the slurry method. A systematic study of the catalyst concentration, type of pol...
It is well known that wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents usually contain micropollutants such as pharmaceuticals (or their transformation products, TPs) or pesticides, which is a major issue when evaluating their possible reuse (e.g. for irrigation in agriculture). In search for an improved accuracy and simplicity, methods based on the dir...
In this chapter, pilot-scale studies and some innovative lab-scale investigations on hospital wastewater (HWW) treatment are presented. Pilot-scale systems usually consist of a first biological treatment to remove organic matter, nutrients, and some pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) followed by a physicochemical treatment to increase remova...
Industrial preparation of cork consists of its immersion for approximately 1 hour in boiling water. The use of herbicides and pesticides in oak tree forests leads to absorption of these compounds by cork; thus, after boiling process, they are present in wastewater. Cork boiling wastewater shows low biodegradability and high acute toxicity involving...
Closed access until 15 February 2018. This article was published in the Chemical Engineering Journal [© Elsevier] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2016.11.131
Municipal wastewater treatment plants (MWTPs) have become one of the main sources of water for potential reuse. However, some pharmaceuticals, pesticides, hormones and others organics escape conventional wastewater treatments, and therefore, new technologies must be applied to overcome the problem. This article presents an efficient alternative tha...