Kinetics of tetrachloroethylene (PCE) gas degradation and by products formation during UV/H2O2 treatment in UV-bubble column reactor

Dzevo Alibegic*, Satoshi Tsuneda, Akira Hirata

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

17 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The UV/H2O2 process is commonly used for the remediation of drinking and groundwater pollution with chlorinated volatile organic compounds. In direct treatment, its efficiency can be lowered in the presence of radical scavengers and/or UV light absorbers. This research is focused on the improvement of the UV/H2O2 photolytic process, due to the reduction of OH radical scavengers and UV absorbers in the reacting system. Degradation of tetrachloroethylene (PCE) gas, which was absorbed into a bubble column reactor equipped with UV light (UV-BCR), containing distilled water and H2O2 as the reacting medium, was studied in a one flow-through mode. Degradation of PCE in the liquid phase was found to follow pseudo-first-order kinetics and apparent rate constants in the order of 0.02 s-1 have been observed. An absorption-reaction model based on slow reaction in the bulk liquid was proposed, and it fitted the experimental data reasonably well. However, when sequence making internal (designed as to prolong the gas pathway through the reactor) was in the system in addition to the relatively high PCE concentrations (500 ppm), production of the byproduct chloroform was observed, indicating that some reaction might have occured in the gas phase. The addition of term for a reaction in the gas phase was able to account for the reaction due to direct absorption of PCE.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)6195-6203
Number of pages9
JournalChemical Engineering Science
Volume56
Issue number21-22
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2001 Nov 23

Keywords

  • Bubble column
  • Gas-liquid absorption with reaction
  • Hydrogen peroxide
  • PCE
  • Photooxidation
  • UV light

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Chemistry(all)
  • Chemical Engineering(all)
  • Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

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