With the increasing pressure on a more effective use of water resources, the developpement of appropriate water treatment technologies become more and more important. Photochemical and electrochemical oxidation processes have been proposed in recent years as an attractive alternative for the treatment of contaminated water containing anthropogenic substances hardly biodegradable as well as to purify and disinfect drinking waters. The aim of this paper is to present some of our last results demonstrating that electrochemical, photochemical, and the coupling of these processes with bio161 REVISTA COLOMBIANA DE QUIMICA, VOLUMEN 34, No. 2 DE 2005 * Departamento de Quimica, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de los Andes, Cra. 1 No. 18A-10, Bogota, Colombia. Correo electronico: vsarria@uniandes.edu.co ** Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, GGEC, Station 6, CH 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. *** Grupo de Electroquimica, Instituto de Quimica, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Antioquia, A.A. 1226, Medellin, Colombia.