Modeling and experimental verification of the degradation of trichloro-ethylene in air streams employing a fixed bed photocatalytic reactor made of glass fiber meshes coated with TiO2

ESTERKIN, C.R.; NEGRO, A.C.; ALFANO, O.M.; CASSANO, A.E.

Rosario, Argentina

Workshop; Workshop on Mathematical Modelling of Energy and Mass Transfer Processes, and Applications; 2005

In this work, the degradation of trichloroethylene (TCE) in an air stream is studied using different values of the pollutant feed concentration, relative humidity and light intensity under operating conditions where kinetic control of the process is established. The reactor was made of several TiO2 coated, parallel, flat glass fiber meshes, bilaterally UV irradiated. A kinetic model based on a reaction scheme that involves atomic chlorine as an active reaction intermediate is developed for describing  concentration dependencies. It includes, explicitly, the effect of the absorbed light intensity on the rate. With this purpose, the modeling and experimental verification of the radiation field inside a was accomplished. The interaction of the existing radiation field with the solid semiconductor to generate electrons and holes in the reaction catalyst activation step the is also modeled. All kinetic parameters are estimated from experiments. The results show good agreement between predictions derived from the proposed kinetic expression and TCE experimental concentration data at the reactor?s exit.