Optimum conditions of photocatalysis process in a wastewater treatment

Abstract EN

The aim of the present study was to investigate the optimum operating conditions which yield the best performance of the photocatalysis process for the degradation of the synthetic dye in wastewater.

The solar reactor was made up of a flat-plate colorless glass of dimensions of (1000 x 750 x 4 mm).

The base of the reactor was made of aluminum.

This geometry enables the light entering the liquid film from almost any direction to be reflected and can also be employed for the photocatalytic reaction.

Various operating parameters were studied to investigate the behavior of the designed reactor like initial dye concentration (C = 10-50 mg / L), loading of catalyst (CTiO2 = 300-800 mg / L), suspension flow rate (QL = 0.3-2.0 L / min), pH of solution (5-9), and H2O2 concentration (CH2O2 = 200-1000 mg / L).

The operating parameters were optimized to give higher efficiency to the reactor performance.

Optimum parameters of the photocatalysis process were loading of catalyst (400 mg / L), suspension flow rate (0.5L / min), H2O2 concentration (400 mg / L), and pH = 5.

The designed reactor when operating at optimum conditions offered a degradation of MV up to 0.9527 within one hours of operation time, while a conversion of 0.9995 was obtained in three hours.

The product water was analyzed using UVspectrophotometer and FTIR.

Analysis of the results confirmed that produced water from the solar reactor system could be safely recycled and reuse.