Many studies have demonstrated that sewage treatment plants do not efficiently degrade pharmaceuticals such as antibiotics, hormones, and analgesics. Ozonation has been identified as a promising technique to degrade those compounds. A series of experiments was used to evaluate the impact of three parameters on the efficiency and kinetics of degradation of sulfamethoxazole, an antibiotic, by ozonation. An ozone reactor was designed to perform experiments. Analytical techniques, based on liquid and gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, were developed to measure concentrations of sulfamethoxazole and identify degradation products. / It was shown that the rate constant and the degradation efficiency are greater when the initial concentration of sulfamethoxazole is lower; the presence of other contaminants in solution decreases the percentage of degradation observed, and the concentration of hydrogen peroxide, used as catalyst, must be well adjusted since an inappropriate concentration hinders the reaction. Finally, the analysis of ozonated samples allowed the identification of degradation products and resulted in a proposed degradation mechanism.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.99776 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Leclair, Christine. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Engineering (Department of Chemical Engineering.) |
| Rights | © Christine Leclair, 2006 |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002603235, proquestno: AAIMR32604, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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