Degradation of phenol by heterogeneous Fenton process in an impinging streams reactor with catalyst bed

Abstract

AbstractIn the present study, the decomposition of phenol in aqueous solutions was investigated in both impinging system and batch reactor. In impinging reactor, catalyst particles with an average diameter of 1.5 × 103μm were confined in a wired cage located in the middle of the reaction vessel. The catalyst was synthesized by impregnation of iron on clinoptilolite zeolite as the support. The mean residence time of the solution in this reactor was 3 s. Therefore, the number of impingements required for the complete degradation of phenol was assessed to be 8 times. The advantage of performing the impinging reactor over a conventional reaction system has been demonstrated in this study. In the impinging reactor at 55 °C, time needed for degradation of phenol in aqueous media was measured to be as low as 24 s; however, phenol degraded completely in 10 min in batch stirred reactor. The optimum operating conditions for the impinging reactor were found as: catalyst containing 5 wt% iron, pH = 3.25, weight ratio of H2O2/phenol = 20, temperature = 55 °C. © 2017 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.