Kinetics of Catalytic Wet Peroxide Oxidation of Phenolics in Olive Oil Mill Wastewaters over Copper Catalysts

Karolina Maduna; Narendra Kumar; Atte Aho; Johan Wärnå; Stanka Zrnčević; Dmitry Yu Murzin

doi:10.1021/acsomega.8b00948

Kinetics of Catalytic Wet Peroxide Oxidation of Phenolics in Olive Oil Mill Wastewaters over Copper Catalysts

ACS Omega. 2018 Jul 3;3(7):7247-7260. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.8b00948. eCollection 2018 Jul 31.

Authors

Karolina Maduna^{1

2}, Narendra Kumar², Atte Aho², Johan Wärnå², Stanka Zrnčević¹, Dmitry Yu Murzin²

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Department of Reaction Engineering and Catalysis, University of Zagreb, Marulicev trg 19, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
² Faculty of Science and Engineering, Laboratory of Industrial Chemistry and Reaction Engineering, Åbo Akademi University, Biskopsgatan 8, FI 20500 Turku-Åbo, Finland.

Abstract

During olive oil extraction, large amounts of phenolics are generated in the corresponding wastewaters (up to 10 g dm^-3). This makes olive oil mill wastewater toxic and conventional biological treatment challenging. The catalytic wet peroxide oxidation process can reduce toxicity without significant energy consumption. Hydrogen peroxide oxidation of phenolics present in industrial wastewaters was studied in this work over copper catalysts focusing on understanding the impact of mass transfer and establishing the reaction kinetics. A range of physicochemical methods were used for catalyst characterization. The optimal reaction conditions were identified as 353 K and atmospheric pressure, giving complete conversion of total phenols and over 50% conversion of total organic carbon content. Influence of mass transfer on the observed reaction rate and kinetics was investigated, and parameters of the advanced kinetic model and activation energies for hydrogen peroxide decomposition and polyphenol oxidation were estimated.