The pharmaceutical industry faces the challenge of having to provide high-purity process water while also meeting requirements for the complete safety of the water. Poly- and perfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) pose a particular challenge for industrial water treatment due to their exceptional persistence and mobility, as conventional chemical-physical processes quickly reach their limits. As a result, ozone-based advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) are currently gaining increasing attention and offer a promising solution, as they can incorporate ozone generators.

This presentation will discuss the specific applications and mechanisms of action of ozone-based AOPs in the context of pharmaceutical media. It will explain what PFAS can mean in chemical terms for the operational safety of a ultrapure water system. The focus will then be on the technical possibilities for generating highly reactive oxygen species that are capable of breaking down these chemical compounds. The possibility of integrating this into existing, effective cleaning processes also plays a major role here. Finally, kinetic data from current pilot studies will be used to demonstrate how effective operational management can not only reduce PFAS contamination to a non-critical level, but also ensure safe process control.