(438c) Oxidative Treatment of Industrial Wastewater: Development of Novel Catalysts and Technology Evaluation

Some chemical industries, such as pulp and paper mills or distillery units, are water intensive and generate large amounts of wastewater. Many of these compounds are not amenable to biological treatment (like lignin) but are highly toxic to the environment. Hence wastewater from such industries requires a primary oxidative degradation prior to biological treatment. Development of efficient catalyst which operates at modest conditions is critical to the economics of this process. Furthermore, since the system involves a three phase catalytic reactor, the study of kinetics and transport effects is needed to guide the choice of the best reactor type and optimal design. The focus of this work is to address these issues and guide in the development of more advanced and cost effective technologies in this area.

As a model lignin compound, ferulic acid is oxidized with a CuO/CeO₂ catalyst in the presence of air at mild temperature and pressure. This specific catalyst shows an overall total organic carbon conversion of around seventy percent with both catalytic and non-catalytic reaction occurring. Currently, simple TOC based models and lumped kinetic models have been implemented to describe the catalytic and non-catalytic behavior. These kinetics are being coupled with dispersion type reactor-scale models in order to evaluate the feasibility of industrial use of the proposed catalyst.