STUDIES ON ENHANCEMENT OF PHOTODEGRADABILITY OF O-CRESOL WASTE WATER USING INTEGRATED MICROWAVE/UV PHOTOCATALYTIC PROCESS

摘要

Experimental investigations on photodegradation of o-cresol were carried out by integrating microwave irradiation with UV photocatalytic method in order to study the effect of microwaves in enhancing the photodegradability of o-cresol. The studies were carried out in six phases as (ⅰ) direct microwave irradiation, (ⅱ) Microwave irradiation with TiO_2, (ⅲ) integrating UV and microwave radiations, (ⅳ) TiO_2 assisted degradation with integrated UV and microwave radiations, (ⅴ) photodegradation with UV light and (ⅵ) UV/TiO_2 photocatalytic degradation. UV/MW/TiO_2 method resulted in substantial reduction of total reaction time by more than 50% to 67% for similar removal efficiency of COD and TOC by UV/TiO_2. Though irradiation of two sources is involved in integrated UV/MW/TiO_2 method, it was proved that combined effect of UV/M W was not an expensive process than UV/TiO_2 in terms of operating cost. It has also been proved that development of integrated UV/ MW reactor system with traditional UV lamp is possible and the enhancement in degradation of UV/ MW process has been found to be due to non-thermal effect, since reactions were conducted at suppressed temperature.