Mild Temperature Oxidation of Phenol over Rare Earth Exchanged Aluminum Pillared Montmorillonites

Abstract

Wastewater treatment and re-use of industrial process water are critical issues for the developmentof human activities and environment conservation. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the degradationof organic pollutants taking phenol as the model compound over aluminium pillared montmorillonite and therare earth exchanged analogues, underlining the use of environ friendly clay catalysts for the effective removalof water pollutants. From the study it was noted that for reaction variables like temperature, peroxide load,catalyst load, phenol concentration etc, optimal values exist that must be taken into account for obtaining bestresults. The catalysts used were aluminium pillared montmorillonite prepared by partial hydrolysis methodexchanged with La, Ce and Th metal salts at room temperature. Characterisation of the prepared systems weredone using X-ray diffraction and surface area and pore volume measurements.The pillared montmorilloniteshowed considerable increase in basal spacing and BET surface area compared to parent montmorillonite.