Photocatalytic degradation of phenol from industrial effluent using titania-zirconia nanocomposite catalyst

Nowadays, there are increasingly stringent regulations requiring more and more treatment of industrial effluents to generate product waters which could be easily reused or disposed to the environment without any harmful effects. Therefore, different advanced oxidation processes were investigated for treatment of industrial effluents containing phenol. In this study, the photo degradation of phenol in an industrial effluent was studied in a batch reactor, using titania-zirconia nano composite catalyst, which was prepared by sol-gel method using titanium isopropoxide and zirconium oxychloride octahydrade. The catalysts were characterized by transmission electron microscopy and BET analysis. The industrial effluent was also characterized. The highest photocatalytic performance for the reduction of COD as well as phenol in an industrial effluent was observed for an 11.8% zirconia in a zirconia-titania nano composite under UV irradiation. A maximum COD removal of 80% from the effluent was achieved in 150 min at 25°C. The better performance of photocatalytic degradation was achieved in case of UV light than sunlight and dark condition. The reaction was influenced by the process parameters such as catalyst loading, initial pH and COD of the solution and the reaction rate was found to follow the first order kinetics. So, Photodegradation can be an alternative method for the treatment of phenol containing wastewaters.