p-Nitrophenol (p-NP) is a widely known toxic nitroaromatic chemical compound with poor biological degradability. The source of the p-NP release to the natural environment has several sources of industrial activities such as the production of pharmaceuticals, rubbers, dyes, electronics, and textiles. The central nervous system, kidney, and liver can be damaged by p-NP, causing various symptoms such as eye and skin irritations, blood disorders, confusion, loss of consciousness. Hence, p-NP was claimed to be one of the most hazardous waste products and a priority toxic pollutant by the US EPA, and its maximum concentration in natural water bodies was established to below 10 ng/ml. We investigated catalytic degradation of p-NP using different types of promoter metals (Cu, In, Zn, Ni, Sn) on the nZVI surface. First, control tests were conducted to show that p-NP cannot be degraded by photolysis and cannot be adsorbed on the reactor wall. Among different promoter metals, Zn and Cu shows the complete removal of p-NP in 5 min. Reaction kinetics follows pseudo-first-order reaction with rate constants equal to 1.58 min-1 and 0.82 min-1 for Zn and Cu, respectively. Zn/nZVI and Cu/nZVI catalysts showed higher removal efficiency than the NaOH treated coal fly ash supported ZVI and nZVI with NaBH4 (1.28 and 0.31 min-1, respectively). Since Zn showed faster kinetics, it was chosen as representative promoter metal for further experiments with the bimetallic catalyst with Pd as a noble metal. Moreover, SEM-EDX analysis of synthesized bimetallic catalyst showed 50-100 nm nZVI particles and uniform distribution of promoter and noble metals on nZVI surface. The study shows that nZVI supported bimetallic catalysts might be one of the promising environmentally benign technologies, which has high efficiency and potential to mineralize p-NP. Also, our experimental results can provide a basic understanding to develop the novel remediation and treatment technologies for the reclamation of contaminated surface and groundwater.

Catalytic degradation of p-nitrophenol by nano zerovalent iron (nZVI) supported bimetallic catalyst

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.