Photocatalytic degradation of aqueous phenanthrene in a slurry photocatalytic reactor: Optimization and modelling

Abstract

A photoreactor with 254 nm, 16 W UV lamp was evaluated for phenanthrene (PHE) degradation. The effect of operating variables such as initial PHE concentration (1000-1500 μg/l), catalyst dosage (0.1- 0.9 g/l) and pH (3.0-9.0) on PHE degradation was investigated in detail. The batch study of photocatalytic process showed 83.5% PHE degradation and 60.2% TOC removal for optimized values (PHE concentration - 1000 μg/l, TiO2 dosage - 0.5 g/l and pH - 3.0) during 3 h reaction. The photocatalytic degradation of PHE was found to follow pseudo-first-order kinetics. The results obtained from continuous process revealed that nano TiO2 could be used for industrial applications because of its potential for long-term operations. Response surface methodology (RSM) with Design Expert software was used to analyse the obtained experimental data.