CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Oxygen dissolved in water is a cause of corrosion in heating installations, and on the other hand, in the production of beverages such as beer, it leads to the oxidation of organic matters decreasing the quality of the product. Therefore, its content must be substantially reduced. In this work, the catalytic deoxygenation of water using supported palladium catalyst is studied. The catalyst consists of palladium that was ion-exchanged on a weak-basic macroporous resin. This work addresses the catalytic deactivation and regeneration of this type of catalyst, comparing results obtained in the laboratory with those obtained from an industrial reactor used to deoxygenate water for beer production. It was found that there are two deactivation mechanisms. In the short term, the deposition of organic material (humic acids) coming with the water is responsible for activity lost. In the long term, the palladium leaching that occurs during the cleaning-in-place procedure is the cause of the irreversible deactivation. The study made it possible to develop the conditions to regenerate the catalyst and to largely improve the stability during operation-regeneration cycles.