Development of a slurry continuous flow reactor for photocatalytic treatment of industrial waste water

Abstract

The water treatment capability of a novel photocatalytic slurry reactor was investigated using methylene blue (MB) as a model pollutant in an aqueous suspension. A pellet TiO 2 catalyst was employed and this freed the system from the need of filtration of catalyst following photocatalysis. This configuration combines the high surface area contact of catalyst with pollutant of the slurry reactor and also offers a high illumination of catalyst by its unique array of weir-like baffles. In this work, the batch adsorption of MB from aqueous solution (10 μM) onto the TiO 2 catalyst was studied, adsorption isotherms and kinetics were determined from the experimental data. Complete degradation of MB was achieved within 60 min illumination with various loadings of catalyst (30–200 g L −1). A modest catalyst loading (30 g L −1) achieved 98% degradation within 60 min of irradiation. Experimental results indicate that this novel reactor configuration has a high effective mass transfer rate and UV light penetration characteristics.