Modeling And Experimental Verification of The Degradation of Trichloroethylene in Air Streams Employing Fixed Bed Photocatalytic Reactor Made of Glass Fiber Meshes Coated with TiO2

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

Salamanca, España

Workshop; New Trends in Chemical Engineering; 2004

The kinetics of any photochemical reaction is always a function of the existing radiation field. Consequently, the first step in the modeling of the photoreactor is the description of the photon distribution in the reaction space. A radiation model has been developed and verified for a reactor made of a series of flat, glass fiber catalytic meshes. The interaction of the existing radiation field with the solid semiconductor to generate electrons and holes in the reaction catalyst activation step is also modeled. Afterwards, 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. 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. All kinetic parameters are estimated from experiments. The results show good agreement between predictions derived from the proposed radiation model and the derived kinetic expression and TCE experimental concentration data at the reactor?s exit.