Effect of the Operative Variables on the Treatment of Wastewater Polluted with Phthalo Blue by H2O2/UV Process

Large quantities of pollutants such as phthalocyanine which are difficult to degrade by conventional techniques are discharged by the textile industry. Advanced oxidation processes have been shown to be capable of degrading organic compounds and removing colour from the industrial wastewater. In this research, the hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)/UV process under different operative variables has been checked using a photoreactor lab plant to analyse its behaviour in the removal of colour and chemical oxygen demand of synthetic textile wastewater with a pigment named phthalo blue 36:3 (C.I. PB15:3). Different pH and H2O2 concentrations were tested to find the better conditions for the UV/H2O2 process suitable for this kind of pollution; this was carried out as an initial study of the operative variables for the scale-up of this technology. The research has shown that with pH 7 and 5 g/L of H2O2, this process can get an organic matter removal higher than 89 % and a colour removal near 70 %. Different kinetic models of organic matter removal have been checked to analyse and predict the influence of time on the process to model similar conditions of pollution. The high correlation between empirical and theoretical data model was pseudofirst order (R 2 = 0.989 ± 0.007).