Life cycle assessment of homogeneous Fenton process as pretreatment for refractory pharmaceutical wastewater

The applicability of the life cycle assessment (LCA) to the Fenton process should be considered not only at the laboratory-scale but also at the full-scale. In this study, the LCA process was applied to evaluate the homogeneous Fenton process for the treatment of high salinity pharmaceutical wastewater. The potential environmental impacts were calculated using Simapro software implementing the CML 2001 methodology with normalization factors of 1995 world. Foreground data obtained directly from the full-scale wastewater treatment plant and laboratory were used to conduct a life cycle inventory analysis, ensuring highly accurate results. By normalized results, the Fenton process reveals sensitive indicators, primarily toxicity indicators (human toxicity, freshwater aquatic toxicity, and marine aquatic toxicity), as well as acidification and eutrophication impacts, contributed by hydrogen peroxide and iron sludge incineration, respectively. Overall, hydrogen peroxide and iron sludge incineration contribute significantly, accounting for at least 78% of these indicators. In sludge treatment phase, treatment of iron mud and infrastructure of hazardous waste incineration plants were the key contributors of environmental impacts, adding up to more than 95%. This study suggests the need to develop efficient oxidation processes and effective iron sludge treatment methods to reduce resource utilization and improve environmental benefits.