Destruction of emerging organophosphate contaminants in wastewater using the heterogeneous iron-based photo-Fenton-like process

Organophosphates have been identified as an emerging group of contaminants in wastewater with significant negative human health effects. Due to their persistence in the watershed, soil, and the food chain, their degradation during wastewater treatment and before the release has garnered significant interest. Advanced oxidation processes enable the degradation of organophosphates with high conversion and fast kinetics. Photo-Fenton and photo-Fenton-like processes utilize a light source to initiate the Fenton reaction and produce reactive oxygen species that are required for the reaction propagation. While homogeneous catalysts have been studied extensively, heterogeneous catalysts are emerging due to their ease of use, separation, and recycling. This review provides a summary of the current progress made in the field of organophosphate degradation using a heterogeneous photo-Fenton-like process when compared to the homogeneous process and highlights the need for the rational photocatalyst design as well as suggests future directions of research, including utilizing wastewater feeds that represent real-world compositional complexity as well as providing molecular-level catalytic process insights to better understand limitations of these catalysts.