Chapters authored
Kinetic Modeling of the UV/H2O2 Process: Determining the Effective Hydroxyl Radical Concentration
A kinetic model for pollutant degradation by the UV/H2O2 system was developed. The model includes the background matrix effect, the reaction intermediate action, and the pH change during time. It was validated for water containing phenol and three different ways of calculating HO° level time-evolution were assumed (non-pseudo-steady, pseudo-steady and simplified pseudo-steady state; denoted as kinetic models A, B and C, respectively). It was found that the kind of assumption considered was not significant for phenol degradation. On the other hand, taking into account the high levels of HO2° formed in the reaction solution compared to HO° concentration (~10–7 M >>>> ~10–14 M), HO2° action in transforming phenol was considered. For this purpose, phenol-HO2° reaction rate constant was calculated and estimated to be 1.6x103 M-1 s-1, resulting in the range of data reported from literature. It was observed that, although including HO2° action allowed slightly improving the kinetic model degree of fit, HO° developed the major role in phenol conversion, due to their high oxidation potential. In this sense, an effective level of HO° can be determined in order to be maintained throughout the UV/H2O2 system reaction time for achieving an efficient pollutant degradation.
Part of the book: Physico-Chemical Wastewater Treatment and Resource Recovery