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Article
A Unified Kinetic Model for Phenol Photocatalytic Degradation over TiO2 Photocatalysts
Chemical Engineering Science, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2012.04.033 (2012)
  • Jesus Moreira del Rio, The University of Western Ontario
  • Benito Serrano, Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas
  • Aaron Ortiz, The University of Western Ontario
  • Hugo de Lasa, The University of Western Ontario
Abstract
This study reports the kinetics of the photocatalytic degradation of phenol using four different TiO2 catalysts. It is shown that phenol yields hydroquinone, catechol, benzoquinone and acetic and formic acids as main intermediate species. A phenomenological unified kinetic model (UKM) based in a “series-parallel” reaction network is proposed. The UKM follows a Langmuir-Hinshelwood kinetics with this being applicable to the various TiO2 photocatalysts studied. The UKM requires a number of significant assumptions in order to be used effectively avoiding overparametization. This approach also requires that the adsorption constants be obtained independently. As a result, the UKM is adapted for each specific TiO2 photocatalyst to describe the experimental photoconversion data. It is concluded that this approach provides good and objective parameter estimates with low to moderate crosscorrelation among kinetic parameters and acceptable 95% CIs.
Keywords
  • Photocatalysis; Langmuir-Hinshelwood; Kinetics; Parameter estimation; Reaction engineering
Publication Date
Summer April 22, 2012
Citation Information
Jesus Moreira del Rio, Benito Serrano, Aaron Ortiz and Hugo de Lasa. "A Unified Kinetic Model for Phenol Photocatalytic Degradation over TiO2 Photocatalysts" Chemical Engineering Science, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2012.04.033 (2012)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/jesus_moreiradelrio/18/