Wet hydrogen peroxide catalytic oxidation of olive oil mill wastewaters using Cu-zeolite and Cu-Pillared clay catalysts

The use of catalysts to improve the performances of water treatment technologies is well known; in the last years more scientific attention wasgiven to the treatment of the olive oil mill wastewaters. This problem affects especially the Mediterranean area because this region is the largestworld olive oil producer. In this paper, the results of the wet hydrogen peroxide catalytic oxidation on olive oil mill wastewaters using Fenton-liketype catalysts (Cu-Silicalite-1 and Cu-pillared clay) are presented. Both the catalysts showed a high conversion in the oxidation of poly-phenolsand were able to drastically reduce the chemical oxygen demand, the biochemical oxygen demand and the non-biodegradability of the olive oil millwastewaters