(226b) Design and Experimental Characterization of a New Photocatalytic Reactor for Wastewater Treatment

A new photocatalytic reactor system comprised of a titanium dioxide coated rotating drum with a corrugated surface partially immersed in contaminated water is proposed. The corrugated surface increases the area for catalyst immobilization and exploits the potential to recapture reflected light. Rotation of the reactor drum serves to enhance the transfer of reactants to the catalyst surface and to periodically illuminate the entire catalyst film. Performance of this reactor for wastewater detoxification is experimentally examined using a simulated wastewater with phenol as the model pollutant. The corrugations significantly improved the overall degradation rate; however, on a unit surface area basis, the drum without corrugations had improved performance over the drums with corrugations. A critical rotational speed of 20 rpm was observed, supporting a transition from mass transfer limited reaction kinetics to oxidation potential limited kinetics. Langmuir-Hinshelwood kinetics accurately describes the degradation for each of the drums; however, the reaction constants are not consistent between the drum configurations due to the induced agitation and the changing mass transfer kinetics.