Scaling-up of Reactors for the Homogeneous Photo-Fenton Degradation of a Herbicide

AGUSTINA V. SCHENONE; LEANDRO O. CONTE; ORLANDO M. ALFANO

Strasbourg

Congreso; 9th European meeting on Solar Chemistry and Photocatalysis: Environmental Applications; 2016

A scaling-up study of the homogeneous photo-Fenton degradation of herbicide2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) is presented. First, different sourcesof iron were studied: sulphate, oxalate and citrate complexes. The results wereevaluated by means of photonic and quantum efficiencies of degradation. Theferrioxalate system presented the best performance for conditions of pH = 5. Consequently, a kinetic model derived from a simplifiedreaction sequence is proposed using the ferrioxalate complex for pH 5. For thispurpose, a lab-scale reactor with artificial sunlight was employed. Kineticparameters were estimated and the validated kinetic model was used to predicttemporal variations of the concentrations of 2,4-D, 2,4-dichlorophenol (mainreaction intermediate), hydrogen peroxide and oxalate ion in a pilot-plant solarreactor.