CATALYTIC OXIDATION OF PHENOLIC WASTEWATER

Abstract

The petrochemical, chemical and pharmaceutical industries release wastewaters having toxic compounds like aromatic compounds such as pyrogallol which are highly harmful to aquatic and human life. Catalytic oxidation is one of the treatment methods to oxidize highly toxic compounds detrimental to human and aquatic life. The aim of this project is to remove pyrogallol from aqueous solution using cobalt loaded granular activated carbon (Co-GAC) as a catalyst. Characteristics include scanning electron microscopic (SEM) and energy-dispersive atomic X-ray analysis (EDAX), Fourier transform infrared spectral (FTIR) analysis, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area, thermo gravimetric (TG) and derivative thermo gravimetric (DTG) analysis.The effect of various parameters like catalyst dose, contact time, initial concentration and initial pH on the catalytic oxidation of pyrogallol in batch reactor. The optimum values of initial concentration, oxidizing agent and catalyst dose were found to be 100 mg/L, 6, 2.5 mL/L and 3 g/L respectively. Overall 78.3% removal was observed at optimum conditions.