Nouryon has partnered with Van Remmen UV Technology, a Dutch water treatment company, to develop a novel method to address the growing problem of pharmaceutical micropollutants in waste water.

Pharmaceuticals are designed not to be broken down by the body, meaning that they end up in wastewater treatment plants, which often cannot remove the often complex and persistent molecules.

Van Remmen said its Advanox advanced oxidation process in combination with Nouryon’s MicrOx hydrogen peroxide technology can offer a solution. Inside an Advanox reactor, UV light splits the hydrogen peroxide molecules into highly reactive hydroxyl radicals, which in turn break down the drugs.

“Growing global pharmaceutical use is creating a significant pollution problem for urban waste water treatment systems,” said Niek Stapel, managing director pulp and performance chemicals at Nouryon. “With this advanced water treatment concept, customers in the water treatment market will have access to two proven technologies that together enable measurement, monitoring and means to control micropollutants in waste water streams.”

The combined process is being tested in a sewage treatment plant in Växjö, Sweden, where a pilot plant was installed at the end of July. Pilot trials started on Aug. 6 for a month and the results will be compiled and sent to both the Swedish Environmental Research Institute and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency where it will be compared to other technologies for advanced water treatment and pharmaceutical removal.

Nouryon, which is supplying the hydrogen peroxide for the project, said it expects the combined process to remove more than 90% of pharmaceutical residues.