0000000000890572
AUTHOR
Gustavo Eduardo Imoberdorf
MODELING OF A TiO2-COATED QUARTZ -WOOL PACKED-BED PHOTOCATALYTIC REACTOR
A fixed-bed, photocatalytic laboratory reactor aimed to degrade pollutants from water streams was designed and built. Quartz wool coated with a thin film of TiO2 was employed as the reactor filling. The photocatalyst was placed in the reactor forming a loose packing to guarantee the intimate contact among reactants, photons, and the photocatalytic surface. This reactor was employed to study the photocatalytic decomposition of a model pollutant (formic acid). A reactor–radiation–reaction model was developed, which was comprised of the reactor mass balance, radiation model, and kinetic model for the degradation of formic acid. The local superficial rate of photon absorption, which was necessa…
Selective Photocatalytic Oxidation of 4-Methoxybenzyl Alcohol to p-Anisaldehyde in Organic-Free Water in a Continuous Annular Fixed Bed Reactor
Photocatalytic oxidation of 4-methoxybenzyl alcohol to p-anisaldehyde was performed in water organic-free solutions by using a fixed bed continuous photoreactor containing Pyrex beads on which a TiO2 home prepared photocatalyst was supported. The influence of liquid flow rate, inlet alcohol concentration and catalyst amount on the photoprocess was studied. The highest selectivity to p-anisaldehyde was about 47% being CO2, the other main oxidation product; traces of 4-methoxybenzoic acid were also detected. The radiation field inside the photoreactor has been modelled by applying the Monte Carlo method thus allowing the determination of the local volumetric rate of photon absorption (LVRPA).…
Radiation model of a TiO2-coated, quartz wool, packed-bed photocatalytic reactor
The radiation field of a packed-bed photocatalytic reactor filled with quartz wool coated with titanium dioxide was modeled using the Monte Carlo technique and the following information: the radiation flux emitted by the lamps, the diameter size distribution of the quartz fiber cloth, the mass of quartz fibers and of TiO2 that was immobilized on the fiber surface as well as the refractive index and the spectral absorption coefficient of the materials of the system. Modeling predictions were validated with radiometer measurements of the transmitted radiation through the reactor, the root mean square error being < 9.7%. Finally, by means of a parametric study, the validated model was used to …