The comparision of Coprinus cinereus peroxidase enzyme and TiO2 catalyst for phenol removal

Abstract

This article investigates phenol removal from an aqueous solution by using enzymatic and photocatalytic methods and the efficiency of these methods has been compared. In enzymatic and photocatalytic methods, Coprinus cinereus, peroxidase enzyme and commercial TiO2 powders (Degussa P-25) in aqueous suspension were used, respectively, in ambient temperature. The effects of different operating parameters such as duration of process, catalyst dosage or enzyme concentration, pH of the solution, initial phenol concentration and H2O2 concentration on both processes were examined. In enzymatic method, efficiency of degradation reached 100% within 5 min, while in the photocatalytic method, the efficiency of degradation reached approximately 70% within 60 min. In photocatalytic method, there is an optimum concentration for catalyst dosage (near 2.0 g/L) to gain 80% efficiency, while in the enzymatic method, increasing the amount of enzyme could lead to an increase in the efficiency up to 100%. Moreover, the optimum pH in enzymatic and photocatalytic methods stood at 8.0 and 7.0, respectively. In both methods, the addition of different amounts of H2O2 increased the degradation efficiency to 100%.