Stability of copper supported pillared clay catalysts during oxidation of model pollutant tyrosol in batch and continuous reactors

Abstract

Abstract The objective of this work is to examine the stability of new copper supported pillared clay catalysts during wet hydrogen peroxide catalytic oxidation (WhPCO) of an aqueous solution of tyrosol. The stability of the catalysts in batch and continuous fixed bed reactor was also studied. In batch reactor, for the CuNHe catalyst, the performance remained quite excellent even after 3 runs both in terms of tyrosol conversion and total organic carbon (TOC) removal, while for CuNOxy a clear loss of activity is observed even during the second run. In the continuous fixed bed reactor, both CuNHe and CuNOxy catalysts showed a good activity and stability in the WPHCO of tyrosol. Around 84% and 53% substrate and TOC conversion respectively were obtained for 120 h reaction. Total elimination of TOC is difficult since oxalic acid, as the main intermediate, is resistant to WHPCO. No significant catalyst deactivation due to metal leaching was detected