Incesticide removal with advanced oxidation processes

One of the main causes of water pollution problems is pesticides used to improve the quality of agricultural products. Pesticides cause water pollution due to the discharging of factory wastes producing agricultural pesticides without adequate treatment or reaching the groundwater of the pesticides that are mixed with the soil after being used in agriculture. A new generation of insecticides, such as neonicotinoids, has emerged as insect species have lost their sensitivity to insecticides, a subgroup of pesticides. Advanced oxidation methods are used to remove pesticides that cannot be removed by conventional treatment methods. The aim of this study was to investigate the removal efficiency of Flubendiamide, Imidacloprid and Clothianidin insecticides by advanced oxidation methods. For this purpose, UV-A, UV-A + TiO2, UV-A + TiO2 + O2, UV-C were applied. It was found that UV-A rays did not contribute significantly to the removal of pesticides, but removal of oxygen was achieved when oxygen was added. As a result of photocatalytic reactions of TiO2 semiconductor with UV radiation, 42% of the pesticides were removed and this ratio increased to 69% with the addition of oxygen. With UV-C application, up to 99% removal efficiency was achieved in a very short time such as 5 minutes.