Design improvement and performance evaluation of solar photocatalytic reactor for industrial effluent treatment.
This work reports the details of the design components and materials used in a linear compound parabolic trough reactor constructed with an aim to use the photocatalyst for solar photocatalytic applications. A compound parabolic trough reactor has been designed and engineered to exploit both UV and visible part of the solar irradiation. The developed compound parabolic trough reactor could receive almost 88% of UV radiation along with a major part of visible radiation. The performance of the reactor has been evaluated in terms of degradation of a probe pollutant using the parameters such as rate constant, residence time and photonic efficiency. An attempt has been made to assess the performance in different ranges of solar spectrum. Finally the developed reactor has been employed for the photocatalytic treatment of a paper mill effluent using Degussa P25 as the photocatalyst. The paper mill effluent collected from Nagaon paper mill, Assam, India has been treated under both batch mode and continuous mode using Degussa P25 photocatalyst under artificial and natural solar radiation, respectively. The photocatalytic degradation kinetics of the paper mill effluent has been determined using the reduction in total organic carbon (TOC) values of the effluent.
Department of Physics, National Institute of Technology, Silchar, Assam 788010, India. Electronic address: rgnair2007@gmail.com.
Ranjith G
RG
Nair
Department of Energy, Tezpur University, Tezpur, Assam 784028, India.
P J
PJ
Bharadwaj
Department of Energy, Tezpur University, Tezpur, Assam 784028, India; Centre for Energy Engineering and Centre of Excellence in Green and Efficient Energy Technology, Central University of Jharkhand, Ranchi, Jharkhand 835205, India. Electronic address: drsksamdarshi@rediffmail.com.
S K
SK
Samdarshi
D002384:Catalysis; D004867:Equipment Design; D007194:India; D007220:Industrial Waste; D007700:Kinetics; D008027:Light; D010782:Photolysis; D012993:Solar Energy; D014466:Ultraviolet Rays; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000379:methods*; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000737:chemistry / Q000528:radiation effects*; D018508:Water Purification / Q000379:methods*
D007220:Industrial Waste; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical
Compound parabolic trough reactor; Green chemistry; Paper mill effluent; Photocatalysis; Photonic efficiency; Solar energy