Photocatalytic degradation of dyes by using a membrane reactor

Abstract Dyes are organic compounds used in textile, food and drug industries, and their abatement represents one of the main problems in the treatment processes because generally they are very stable toxic compounds. In this work, two commercial azo-dyes, i.e. Congo Red (C32H22N6Na2O6S2) and Patent Blue (C27H31N2NaO6S2), in aqueous solution were degraded in a photocatalytic membrane reactor by using TiO2 Degussa P25 as the catalyst. Different system configurations and irradiating sources were studied, and the influence of some operational parameters such as the pressure in the membrane cell and the initial concentration of the substrates was determined. A comparison between suspended and e…