Removal of phenol in aqueous solutions using UV activated periodate process

Phenol is extensively used in various industries and it is mainly discharged to the enviroment from their effluents. In this study, the effectivness of UV activated periodate for removal of phenol in aqueous solutions was investigated.
In this research,experimens were conducted in a bench scale stainless steel reactor equipped with a 55W Hg vapor lamp. The effects of operational parameters such as solution pH (3-10), initial phenol concentration (50-500 mg/L), periodate concentration (8-100 mmol/L) were evaluated. Further, ionic strengh was changed to study its impact on the performance. The final concentration of phenol and mineralization rate were determined using DR-6000 spectrophotometer (at thewavelenght of 500 nm) and COD analysis, respectively.
The findings indicated that the removal of phenol was influenced by different operational parameters. The highest removal rate was obtained at acidic conditions (pH=3), initial periodate concentration of 20 mmol/Land contact time of 60 min, which more than 99.1% of phenol was removed under these optimal conditions. Also,the results showed that maximum COD removal rate was 69% in optimum conditions. It was found that different ionic strengths did not affect the phenol removal rate.
The results indicated that UV activated persulfate process in optimal condition can be used as an alternative technology for treatment of various industrial wastewaters containing phenol.