Photochemical mineralization of di- n-butyl phthalate with H 2O 2/Fe 3+

Abstract

This study evaluated the performance of photo-Fenton reaction initiated by the UV irradiation with H 2O 2/Fe 3+, denoted as UV/H 2O 2/Fe 3+, to decompose di- n-butyl phthalate (DBP) in the aqueous solution. The concentration of total organic carbon (TOC) was chosen as a mineralization index of the decomposition of DBP by the UV/H 2O 2/Fe 3+ process. A second-order kinetic model with respect to TOC was adequately adopted to represent the mineralization of DBP by the UV/H 2O 2/Fe 3+ process. The experimental results of this study suggested that the dosages with 4.74 × 10 −5 mol min −1 L −1 H 2O 2 and initial Fe 3+ loading concentration of 4.50 × 10 −4 mol L −1 in the solution at pH 3.0 with 120 μW cm −2 UV (312 nm) provided the optimal operation conditions for the mineralization of DBP (5 mg L −1) yielding a 92.4% mineralization efficiency at 90 min reaction time.