Photochemical degradation of polybrominated diphenyl ethers in microreactor

摘要

Knowledge of reaction mechanism and kinetics of persistent organic pollutants are crucial to development a removal technology. Feasibility of photochemical microreactor utilization as a tool for experimental investigation of photochemical degradation of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) was studied. The degradation of deca-BDE in the photochemical microreactor with a thin irradiated liquid layer of variable thickness was investigated. The experimental results proved the significantly higher degradation rates of PBDE when compared to the published results obtained with the conventional photochemical reactors. After several minutes in microreactor the final and major degradation products were the mono brominated congeners. The extremely fast degradation of higher-brominated congeners allowed for the complete degradation of deca-BDE down to mono-BDE within short experimental times. The results confirmed the suitability of photochemical microreactors as beneficial tool for better understanding the degradation mechanism and kinetics of photodegradation of persistent organic pollutants due to significantly shorter experimental times needed for obtaining the necessary data.