Removal of Phenol by Expanded Bed Airlift Loop Reactor

Document Type : Research Article

Author

Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Technology, Baghdad, IRAQ

Abstract

The exaggerated release of industrial wastes especially those containing phenol into the environment led to the contamination of both surface and groundwater supplies. In the present work a synergistic and combined system technique between three operations, adsorption of phenol via (rice husk or granular activated carbon GAC as adsorbents) together with stripping by airflow and advance oxidation via hydrogen peroxide as the oxidation agent, to evaluate the possibility of using a proposed new design for internal airlift loop reactor for removing the phenol from wastewater. The experiments were set up in a cylindrical Perspex column consisting of a transparent outer column having a 15 cm inside diameter and 150 cm height that included an internal draught tube of 7.5 cm and extending vertically to 120 cm top contains a bed having a dimension (7.5 x 30 cm) filled with adsorbent materials (rice husk, granular activated carbon GAC) and a volume capacity 25 liters. The experiments were conducted under the influence of both of the following variables air flow rate (2-20) (L/min), treatment time (5-60 min), the molar ratio of hydrogen peroxide to phenol,(1:10, 1:15, and 1:20)). The results showed the success of the proposed design with obtaining a removal efficiency (83%),( 81%)when using GAC and the rice husk as adsorbent materials respectively, with a minimum remediation time 60 minutes, airflow rate of 18 L/min, and molar ratio(20) hydrogen peroxide to phenol. This study demonstrated that the proposed synergistic system could be utilized
for the remediation of contaminated aqueous systems.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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Iranian Journal of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
Volume 41, Issue 1 - Serial Number 111
January 2022
Pages 154-162

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