# Recent Strategies for Environmental Remediation of Organochlorine Pesticides
## 3 Methods for Removal of Organochlorine Pesticides from the Environment
The acid and this oxidizing agent, then degrade organochlorine pesticides to inorganic ions, CO\({}_{2}\) and H\({}_{2}\)O under room pressure and temperature that is lower than 80 \({}^{\circ}\)C ([PERSON] et al., 2018). [PERSON] et al. (2018) removed pesticides by using this method, and the removal rate was found to increase with increase in the initial concentration of the pesticide and temperature of the system. electrochemical oxidation was used to degrade 2,6-dichlorobenzamide pesticides using platinum as anode ([PERSON] et al., 2018). The intermediate products formed during the degradation process were thoroughly investigated. A related technique that also utilizes current is the plasma arc technique, which involves the generation of thermal plasma field by passing electric current through a gas stream under low pressure. This leads to the generation of plasma heat that is above 5000 \({}^{\circ}\)C. This very hot plasma heat could be used to dissociate organochlorine pesticides to their atomic elements via pyrolysis. The three common plasma systems are plasma arc centrifugal treatment, plasma-electric waste converter and in-flight plasma arc system [25; 53]. [PERSON] et al. [39] were the first group to use plasma technology to degrade residues of pesticides from fresh agricultural produce. Mixtures of pesticides including pyriproxyfen, fluidoxonil, cyprodinil and azoxystrobin were degraded from strawberries. In a similar study, [PERSON] et al. degraded pesticide residue from mango by using plasma technology [55]. Reduction processes is another technique that has been reported for the removal of organochlorine from the environment. One of them, which is carried out in the gaseous state and is known as gas-phase chemical reduction reaction. This process involves the use of hydrogen at a temperature of about 1000 \({}^{\circ}\)C or more to degrade organochlorine pesticides to lower molecular weight hydrocarbon such as methane and HCl. Sodium hydroxide would then be used to neutralize the acid formed after cooling the gas. For efficient heat transfer, steam is used. Therefore, it is important to remove water from the input waste [56]. This method was implemented and patented by Eco Logic of Rockwood, Ontario. It is now internationally tested, accepted and in wide use. This method has been adopted for the degradation of hexachlorobenzene and other organochlorine compounds [37]. Approximately 100% degradation of these compounds were reported. Apart from light energy that has been investigated for pesticides degradation, sound energy via ultrasonic technology is now being explored. Ultrasonic technology [57] is the use of acoustic wave with frequency beyond the hearing limit of humans (i.e., 20 KHz). When this sound wave passes through solution containing organochlorine pesticides, acoustic cavitation phenomenon is developed. This undergoes a series of processes that will eventually lead to the release of radicals capable of degrading the pesticides [4]. One interesting feature of this technique is that it could be combined with other techniques and their synergy would produce enhanced degradation of pesticide. In this light, ozonation and ultrasonic technology were combined by [PERSON] et al. [38] for the degradation of pesticide. The acoustic frequency used for the degradation was 160 kHz. The degradation efficiency of the combined system was found to be better than when each of the methods were used for separate degradation of similar pesticide. In a similar fashion, [PERSON] et al. [58] used ultrasonic techniques to treat liquid waste containing ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTAA). This reaction followed first-order kinetics and the rate of reaction increased at higher frequency. Hydroxyl radical was reported to be the most potent oxidizing radical among the radicals involved in the process.