Degradation of reactive orange 4 dye using hydrodynamic cavitation based hybrid techniques

In the present work, degradation of reactive orange 4 dye (RO4) has been investigated using hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) and in combination with other AOP’s. In the hybrid techniques, combination of hydrodynamic cavitation and other oxidizing agents such as H2O2 and ozone have been used to get the enhanced degradation efficiency through HC device. The hydrodynamic cavitation was first optimized in terms of different operating parameters such as operating inlet pressure, cavitation number and pH of the operating medium to get the maximum degradation of RO4. Following the optimization of HC parameters, the degradation of RO4 was carried out using the combination of HC with H2O2 and ozone. It has been found that the efficiency of the HC can be improved significantly by combining it with H2O2 and ozone. The mineralization rate of RO4 increases considerably with 14.67% mineralization taking place using HC alone increases to 31.90% by combining it with H2O2 and further increases to 76.25% through the combination of HC and ozone. The synergetic coefficient of greater than one for the hybrid processes of HC + H2O2 and HC + Ozone has suggested that the combination of HC with other oxidizing agents is better than the individual processes for the degradation of dye effluent containing RO4. The combination of HC with ozone proves to be the most energy efficient method for the degradation of RO4 as compared to HC alone and the hybrid process of HC and H2O2.