Advanced photocatalytic degradation of red water from tnt manufacturing

Abstract EN

The disposal of waste water (red water) that produced during the production of TNT in an environmental acceptable manner posses serious difficulties.

For many years this red water were disposed of by the method open burning but the method is not acceptable today owing to the effect of particulates, nitrogen oxide and other harmful products which pollute the air.

Some other methods of incineration are available which overcome part of these difficulties, but they are very costly.

Preliminary experiments using the method of adsorption on the locally produced activated carbon have demonstrated that adsorption alone is not enough to fulfill the lowest possible levels of total organic carbon (TOC) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) for red water treatment.

In the experimental work the measure of extent of treatment, is the percentage removal at wavelength 200nm, also TOC and COD before and after treatment were measured.

Pre-treatment by adsorption demonstrated that, the percentage removal at wavelength 200nm is 76% , 70% TOC and 78% COD.

The aim of this work is the usage of advanced oxidation process (AOP) by UV/H₂O₂ to fulfill the lowest possible levels of TOC and COD.

The treated water after manipulation of the proposed technique of advanced oxidation process (AOP) was 95.7% TOC and 97% COD.

The preceding results reflect that the used technique is promising and the red water after treatment can be discharged safety.