Environmental Engineering and Management Journal March 2015, Vol.14, No. 3, 595-600 http://omicron.ch.tuiasi.ro/EEMJ/ “Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi, Romania ENHANCING THE FENTON PROCESS BY UV LIGHT APPLIED IN TEXTILE WASTEWATER TREATMENT Vasilica-Ancuta Simion 1 , Igor Cretescu 1 , Doina Lutic 2 , Constantin Luca 3 , Ioannis Poulios 4 1 “Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi, Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Environmental Protection, Department of Environmental Engineering and Management, 73 Prof. Dr. docent Dimitrie Mangeron Str., 700050 Iasi, Romania 2 Al. I. Cuza University, Department of Materials Chemistry, 11 Carol I Blvd., 700506 Iasi, Romania 3 “Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi, Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Environmental Protection, Department of Organic, Biochemical and Food Engineering, 73 Prof. Dr. docent Dimitrie Mangeron Str., 700050 Iasi, Romania 4 Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Department of Chemistry, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece Abstract Nowadays, an efficient wastewater management involves the use of advanced treatment technologies able to decompose hardly biodegradable compounds with reasonable costs at the lowest possible environmental impact. In our work we used one of the most efficient advanced wastewater treatment, the Fenton reaction and its photo-assisted version. The hydrogen peroxide was the oxidizer; despite its relatively high cost, its high activity in oxidizing of a large variety of organic persistent pollutants in the presence of Fe 3+ ions as catalyst, makes it an alternative which is worth to be considered even in practical medium scale systems. The Fenton and photo-Fenton oxidation were performed using a model dye, the xanthene-type Rhodamine 6G, widely used in a series of biotechnology applications, but having major drawbacks when released in natural water flows, mainly mutagen and carcinogen effects. Therefore, a parametric case study was performed in order to define the optimal operating parameters (the pH value, the hydrogen peroxide concentration and the iron catalyst concentration). The oxidative degradation of Rhodamine 6G by Fenton reaction was more effective when combined with UV irradiation. Each parameter of the oxidative treatment is essential for the color and TOC removal. The optimal values found for the total color degradation and mineralization of the dye were as follows: 16 ppm Fe 3+ , 100 ppm H 2 O 2 and pH of 4.5. Key words: advanced wastewater treatment, advanced oxidation process, photo-Fenton, Rhodamine 6G, UV irradiation Received: November, 2014; Revised final: March, 2015; Accepted: March, 2015  Author to whom all correspondence should be addressed: e-mail: icre@ch.tuiasi.ro 1. Introduction The importance paid to an efficient wastewater management is a real label for a civilized, sustainable-oriented society. The complexity of the wastewater composition had increased a lot in the latest decades, due to the multiplication of the human activities (or the dramatic increase of their scales) requiring water as raw material: washing agent, steam production, heating and cooling agent. Up to an extent, the long-term kinds of water use are well- known and consequently, the water quality management and the corresponding decontamination treatments have entered to a routine. The big problem nowadays is the accumulation of organic stable and toxic compounds in the wastewater (dyes, pesticides, surfactants), refractory to the biologically degradation treatments, generating a chemical composition hard to define in details and even more difficult to establish a versatile strategy to get rid of (Caliman et al., 2008; Papić et al., 2014; Yazdanbakhsh et al., 2014; Zaharia and Suteu, 2012). On another part, the reuse of domestic or industrial wastewater after the treatments is not enough