Aqueous Quinoline Treatment with Iron/ Copper Activated UV/ Persulfate Process in a Falling Film Photo-Reactor

This article reports the application of the homogenous UV/ persulfate process, activated with iron copper ions, for the treatment of quinoline (Qu) in aqueous solutions. A photo-reactor with a radial falling solution film around the UV lamp was utilized. Under established optimum conditions of [Qu] 0= 40 mg/L, [PS]= 1000 mg/L, pH 6, [Fe2+] / [Cu2+]= 1 mg/L and after 70 min, 88.3%, 94.8% and 96.4% degradations were achieved with UV/PS, UV/PS/Fe2+ and UV/PS/Cu2+ processes, respectively. Accordingly, total organic carbon (TOC) removals were 31.2%, 36.1% and 82.2% after 120 min, which highlights the amazing power of copper ions in the treatment. For each case, pseudo first order reactions were obtained for the used processes. The required irradiation energy per cubic meter of aqueous solutions was 127.6, 100.5 and 71.8 kWh for the used processes, respectively. Meanwhile, the role of active radicals was investigated using radical scavengers of ethanol and tert-butyl alcohol, indicating about 48.9% contribution of sulfate radicals in the degradation mechanism.