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| Author(s): |
Rosana Aparecida Di Iglia
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | Campinas, SP. |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Faculdade de Engenharia Mecânica |
| Defense date: | 2002-12-18 |
| Examining board members: |
Rodnei Bertazzoli;
Jurandir Rodrigues de Souza;
Meuris Gurgel Carlos da Silva;
Jarbas José Rodrigues Rohwedder;
Celia Marina de Alvarenga Freire
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| Advisor: | Rodnei Bertazzoli |
| Abstract | |
Phenolic compounds are widely used by petrochemical industry. Plastics and resins manufacturing are responsible for the generation of large amounts of aqueous effluents containing phenol. Conventional biological treatment is a low yield process that demands large ponds and its operation generates huge amounts of sludge. Furthermore, chemical treatments present the drawback of storing and handling hazardous reactants. In this work an electrochemical process for phenol removal was designed and optimized. A flow cell reactor was developed using a flat and a three dimensional commercial oxide anodes, coated with RuO2 - TiO2. The whole investigation was carried out in four phases and comprised: 1. Flow reactor designing and setting up; 2. Voltammetric identification of redox couples of the anode coating; 3. Degradation of phenol solutions by controlled potential bulk electrolysis; 4. Reactors comparative performance study. Anodes oxide coating structure and composition were determined by MEV-EDS which revealed cracked-mud like topology with composition of (TiO2)0,67-(RuO2)0,33 (mol%). Voltammetric experiments identified three rutenium redox couples in the oxide coating. Based on the oxygen evolution reaction currents, the three-dimensional electrode area shown to be three times greater than the flat electrode area. In the controlled potential electrolysis, the role of potential and flow rate were evaluated and kinetic analysis of the electrochemical process lead to the calculation of the phenol degradation rate constants as a function of the variables above. By using potential of 2.5 V vs SCE, 100% of phenol present in solution was degraded in three hours of processing when the three dimensional electrode was mounted in the reactor. By using the flat anode only 50% was removed in the same experiment time. Similar behavior was observed for TOC and COD reduction. In the experiments in which the flow rate was used as the independent variable, it was observed that increased values of flow rate causes a reduction of phenol degradation rate. Kinetic analysis confirmed the observation, point to the conclusion that higher residence times increased the phenol conversion rate. By considering the energy consumption for a process conducted at 1.63 V, 675 kWh kg-1 of phenol was spent. Considering an average value for the kWh of US$ 0.02, 1Kg of phenol can be degraded by a cost of US$ 13.5. This means that 10,000 L of solution containing 100 mg L-1 of phenol can be treated by this price. By comparing with the cost of a biological treatment, further improvements are necessary prior to scale up the electrochemical process for industrial effluent treatment (AU) | |