COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT ADVANCED OXIDATION PROCESSES DEGRADING P-CHLOROPHENOL IN AQUEOUS SOLUTION

In present study, degradation of p-chlorophenol using several oxidation systems involving advanced oxidation processes such as ultraviolet/H2O2, microwave/H2O2 and both in the absence of hydrogen peroxide in batch mode by photolytic pilot plant and modified domestic microwave oven was evaluated. The oxidation rate was influenced by many factors, such as the pH value, the amount of hydrogen peroxide, irradiation time and microwave power. The optimum conditions obtained for the best degradation rate were pH=7 and H2O2 concentration of 0.05 mol/L for ultraviolet/H2O2 system and pH=10.5, H2O2 concentration of about 0.1 mol/L and microwave irradiation power of about 600W for microwave/H2O2 system at constant p-chlorophenol concentration. The degradation of p-chlorophenol by different types of oxidation processes followed first order rate decay kinetics. The rate constants were 0.137, 0.012, 0.02 and 0.004/min1 for ultraviolet/H2O2, microwave/H2O2, ultraviolet and microwave irradiation alone. Finally a comparison of the specific energy consumption showed that ultraviolet/H2O2 process reduced the energy consumption by at least 67% compared with the microwave/H2O2 process.