Kinetics of wet oxidation of black liquor over a Pt–Pd–Ce/alumina catalyst

Abstract

The catalytic oxidation of industrial wastewater from paper and pulp mills has been investigated in a slurry reactor at a temperature range 433–463 K and at pressures from 1.5 to 2.2 MPa. Adding Ce on alumina support promotes the catalytic activity for oxidation of black liquor. Pt–Pd–Ce/alumina catalyst shows a promising activity for wet catalytic oxidation of black liquor. The oxidation reaction over a Pt–Pd–Ce catalyst is characterized by an initial fast reaction step followed by a slow reaction step. The rate of total organic carbon (TOC) reduction was described by first-order kinetics with respect to TOC concentration in black liquor for both initial and later reaction steps. The activation energies were determined to be 54.53 and 50.13 kJ/mol for the initial and later oxidation steps, respectively. Comparison of the data with the generalized kinetic model was also presented.