Oxidation and Removal of Organic Pollutants from Wastewater Using Photocatalyst

Abstract

Organic compounds presented in water have been considered as toxic pollutants and extremely harmful to the environment. Therefore; this study has investigated the ability of an oxidation process using the light and titanium dioxide (TiO₂) as a photocatalyst in order to degrade a pollutant. 2,4-Dichlorophenol (2,4 DCP) was taken as a pollutant model due to its toxicity. The present study also reports a mechanism and kinetic model of 2,4 DCP oxidation and its main intermediate 4-chlorophenol (4-CP) based on the experimental results. In order to obtain more details about the photocatalytic reaction pathway and the kinetic model, set of experiments were carried out using various TiO₂ doses. The best effective and optimum value of TiO₂ concentration was 1.5 mg/L. The kinetic model provides a very good fit of the experimental data. The reaction mechanism for the photocatalytic degradation of 2,4 DCP is proposed.