An optimization study on microwave irradiated decomposition of phenol in the presence of H₂O₂

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Removal of phenol from industrial waste waters involves basic techniques namely extraction, biodegradation, photocatalytic degradation, etc. Among the available processes, the oxidation of phenols using H 2 O 2 is a suitable alternative because of low cost and high oxidizing power. The application of an oxidation process for the decomposition of stable organic compounds in waste water leads to the total degradation of the compounds rather than transferring from one form to another. Since oxidation using Fenton's reagent is more dependent on pH, in this present work it was proposed to use H 2 O 2 coupled with microwave irradiation. The effects of initial phenol concentration, microwave power and the irradiation time on the amount of decomposition were studied.

Recent developments in photochemical and chemical AOPs in water treatment: a mini-review

“…MW irradiation has successfully been used with H 2 O 2 to produce HO• (Prasannakumar et al 2009). The formation of HO• in MW/H 2 O 2 system occurs similarly to UV/H 2 O 2 , so that the MW irradiation splits the H 2 O 2 molecule into two radicals and so on.…”

The removal of methyl orange from aqueous solution by biochar and activated carbon under microwave irradiation and in the presence of hydrogen peroxide

“…In the presence of carbon, the amount removed increased but the heating method and presence of H 2 O 2 had no significant impact. Several studies have reported an increase in the removal of organic compounds by H 2 O 2 under microwave irradiation [10,[26][27][28][29]. As pointed out by Nascimento and Azevedo [30], however, there was no clear evidence whether the observed increase in H 2 O 2 activity was due to non-thermal (e.g., enhanced formation of hydroxyl radicals) or thermal effects of microwave irradiation (e.g., higher heating rate and reaction temperature in the microwave oven compared to conventional heating sources).…”

Species distribution of ferric hydrolysates in microwave enhanced Fenton-like process and possible mechanism

“…Furthermore, as reported in literature [30], microwave was able to promote the generation of hydroxyl radials via H 2 O 2 decomposition, leading to improve the oxidative capacity of system. Comparing with the result obtained form thermostatic heating, the removal efficiency of phenol by microwave was as higher as 20%.…”