Significant effort has been expended over the past two decades to develop catalysts and catalytic reactor systems to treat oxyanion water pollutants, including nitrate, nitrite, perchlorate, and related oxyanions. To date, palladium has been the primary metal studied, based in large part on their success in treating chlorinated hydrocarbons in pilot-scale studies. However, high costs and price volatility of Pd present a significant barrier to commercialization. Thus, identification of alternative metals (especially lower cost options) for the same catalytic processes can provide for both lower costs and greater price stability if substitution is an option when one metal cost spikes. Therefore, our team has been focusing on re-examining the use of alternative hydrogenation metals (Rh, Ru, Pt, and Ir), both alone and in combination with bimetal promoters (e.g., In, Re) for catalytic reduction of a variety of oxyanion substrates (nitrate, nitrite, bromate, chlorate, and perchlorate). This presentation will highlight recent findings, particularly the promise of ruthenium as a promising substitute for Pd. Current market price for Ru is 10-fold lower than Pd, and experiments show that that supported Ru catalysts can exhibit similar and even superior activity to Pd catalysts for reduction of nitrate and other water pollutants. Deeper understanding of reaction kinetics, mechanism, and of reactions on Ru in comparison to Pd will be presented. Work will also be presented describing the application of catalysts in combination of other processes designed to separate and recover contaminants from water (e.g., ion exchange, membrane processes) to develop hybrid treatment technologies that can be implemented within the current water infrastructure.

Advancing catalysts and catalytic processes for treating oxyanion water pollutants – moving beyond palladium and developing hybrid reactor systems

255th National Meeting (2018)

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