Kinetics Study on Heterogeneous Catalytic Wet Air Oxidation of Phenol using Copper/Activated Carbon Catalyst

Heterogeneous kinetics of catalytic wet air oxidation (CWAO) of phenol was studied using copper supported on activated carbon as the catalyst and oxygen as the oxidant. Both mass transfer effect and deactivation of catalyst can affect the kinetics measurement. To eliminate the mass transfer barriers, the study was conducted in a stirred tank batch reactor using catalysts of very small particle size. In order to prevent the catalyst deactivation caused by copper leaching from the support, saturated pH buffer solution was added into the reaction system and the initial phenol and catalyst concentrations were reduced. A mathematic model was proposed following the Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism to simulate the reaction kinetics. It is believed through simulation that the dissolved oxygen is adsorbed by the catalyst in molecular form which subsequently starts to degrade phenol on the catalyst surface. Both reaction rate constant and activation energy were determined for a temperature range of 140 - 160 oC and an oxygen partial pressure range of 0.4 - 1.6 MPa. The proposed mechanism and kinetic model were found to be in good agreement with experimental results.