Catalytic destruction of 1,2-dichlorobenzene on V2O5–WO3/Al2O3–TiO2 catalyst Original Research Article

Studies on the catalytic destruction of 1,2-dichlorobenzene were carried out on a specially constructed semi-technical equipment whose most important element was a catalytic reactor with a monolithic catalyst in the form of 150 × 150 × 100 mm cubes. A catalyst made from cordierite with an active layer composed of Al2O3 – 64 wt%, TiO2 – 26 wt%, V2O5 – 6.6 wt% and WO3 – 3.4 wt% was used. The reactor made it possible to carry out the process in the temperature range 150–350 °C, at variable catalyst loading and different velocities of gas flow through the reactor. The content of 1,2-dichlorobenzene in the air was analysed by a chromatographic method. A significant effect of catalyst loading and temperature on 1,2-dichlorobenzene destruction efficiency was observed and no effect of the linear flow velocity through the catalyst on o-dichlorobenzene destruction efficiency was reported. The applied vanadium–tungsten catalyst on a monolithic carrier made from TiO2/γ-Al2O3 revealed very good activity that resulted in an over 80% efficiency of 1,2-dichlorobenzene destruction at the temperature around 250 °C at a very high catalyst loading reaching ca. 8200 h−1. Additionally, in this study the kinetics of 1,2-dichlorobenzene decomposition was determined, specifying the order of reaction and dependence of the decomposition rate constant on temperature, using a simple power-rate law model.