Fenton's treatment of actual agriculture runoff water containing herbicides

This research was to study the efficiency of the Fenton's treatment process for the removal of three herbicides, namely 2,4-dichlorophenoxy acetic acid (2,4-D), ametryn and dicamba from the sugarcane field runoff water. The treatment process was designed with the Taguchi approach by varying the four factors such as H₂O₂/COD (1-3.5), H₂O₂/Fe²⁺ (5-50), pH (2-5) and reaction time (30-240 min) as independent variables. Influence of these parameters on chemical oxygen demand (COD), ametryn, dicamba and 2,4-D removal efficiencies (dependent variables) were investigated by performing signal to noise ratio and other statistical analysis. The optimum conditions were found to be H₂O₂/COD: 2.125, H₂O₂/Fe²⁺: 27.5, pH: 3.5 and reaction time of 135 min for removal efficiencies of 100% for ametryn, 95.42% for dicamba, 88.2% for 2,4-D and with 75% of overall COD removal efficiencies. However, the percentage contribution of H₂O₂/COD ratio was observed to be significant among all four independent variables and were 44.16%, 67.57%, 51.85% and 50.66% for %COD, ametryn, dicamba and 2,4-D removal efficiencies, respectively. The maximum removal of herbicides was observed with the H₂O₂ dosage of 5.44 mM and Fe²⁺ dosage of 0.12 mM at pH 3.5.