Making the Most of Precious Metal Nanoparticles in the Purification of Industrial Wastewater by Catalytic Wet Air Oxidation

The aim of catalytic wet air oxidation is to use air to remove organic contaminants from wastewater through their complete oxidation, without having to vaporise the water. To date, the widespread exploitation of this process has been held back by the low activity of available catalysts, which means that it has to be operated at above-atmospheric pressure in order to keep the water in the liquid phase at the elevated temperatures required to achieve complete oxidation. Here we present an overview of an ongoing study examining the key requirements of both the active phase and the support material in precious metal catalysts for wet air oxidation, using phenol as the model contaminant. The major outcome to date is that the results reveal a synergy between platinum and hydrophobic support materials, which is not apparent when the active phase is ruthenium.