title: Photochemical degradation of crude oil: Comparison between direct irradiation, photocatalysis, and photocatalysis on zeolite.
abstract: Direct irradiation for 100h of crude oil from Basilicata (Southern Italy) gave in the case of linear and branched alkanes a reduction of 9 and 5%, respectively. On the contrary, cyclic alkanes decreased for 54% while aromatic hydrocarbons showed a reduction of 37%. These results are in agreement with a prevalent electron transfer mechanism. Photocatalysis (100h) gave extensive degradation of crude oil: linear alkanes were degraded for 98.66%, branched alkanes were reduced for 97.31%, cyclic alkanes for 96.04%, while aromatic compounds and alkenes were reduced for 99.54 and 98.38%, respectively. These results are in agreement with a prevalent hydrogen abstraction mechanism. When photocatalysis is performed in the presence of zeolite linear alkanes were degraded for 79.85%, branched alkanes were reduced for 45.38%, cyclic alkanes for 58.10%, while aromatic compounds were reduced for 91.85%. In this case, an increase of the relative amount of alkenes (42.05%) was observed.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Chimica, Università della Basilicata, Via N. Sauro 85, 85100 Potenza, Italy. maurizio.dauria@unibas.it
authors.forename: Maurizio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: D'Auria
authors.forename: Lucia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Emanuele
authors.forename: Rocco
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Racioppi
authors.forename: Vincenzina
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Velluzzi