Oxyanions are among the most widespread and toxic pollutants in drinking water, and include nitrate, perchlorate, and bromate.   Ion exchange is typically used to remove oxyanions from drinking water, but contaminants are only transferred to waste brine and further treatment or disposal is required.  One promising approach to treat oxyanions in drinking water is Pd-based catalytic reduction, either as a stand-alone process or in combination with ion exchange to treat and reuse brine.  Typically Pd and a promoter metal (e.g., In, Cu, Re) are combined with hydrogen to reduce oxyanions to benign end products such as chloride (from perchlorate) and di-nitrogen (from nitrate).  Although Pd-based catalytic reduction of oxyanions is promising, faster reduction rates and longer catalyst lifetimes are needed to enhance catalyst sustainability and reduce cost.  In this talk, I will present life cycle assessment (LCA) results of Pd-based catalysts and ion exchange, demonstrating the promise of catalytic treatment, and the need to develop more active catalysts.  I will present characterization results for a suite of Pd nanocrystal catalysts that we synthesized, and show how activity for nitrite reduction can be improved by tailoring the synthesis of Pd to maximize the surface area of  facets.  I will also demonstrate that nitrite activity on Pd  facets is correlated to adsorption energy.

Development of sustainable catalytic materials for removal of oxyanions from drinking water

246th National Meeting (2013)

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