Estudo da degradação do fenol por processos oxidativos avançados utilizando fotocatálise heterogênea com TiO2

One of the great challenges of the oil extraction is the amount of water produced in the process, which creates a great investment for the treatment of the effluent aimed at its disposal in the environment. The phenol component is in significant concentrations in this production water as mentioned by Milhome et al. in 2009. Phenol is a highly toxic chemical that if ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin can be fatal to the living organism. The present study aimed to investigate an alternative to the reduction of the phenol concentration in an aqueous solution of phenol by treatment by advanced oxidation processes using heterogeneous photocatalysis and TiO2 as a catalyst. The photocatalysis was carried out in a reactor containing a UV lamp with power of 30 W at the wavelength of 254 nm. The influence of the treated solution volume and volume change was investigated using volumes of 200 ml and 500 ml of solution with 100 mg/L of phenol and 1 g/L TiO2 and duration of radiation 2 hours. The results showed that the variation of the volume of the solution during treatment has an influence on the photocatalytic degradation efficiency of phenol where the tests with 200 ml and withdrawing 10 ml of the solution every 10 min, the degradation was 61.46%, since the tests with 200 ml volume shows no withdrawal, there was a 20.21% efficiency apparent degradation.