Publications

A laboratory study on the degradation of organic pollutants has been carried out with phenol, which was used as a typical of the organic contaminant. The method involved is a novel technology based on a photocatalytic process where TiO2 and ultraviolet radiation are applied as the catalyst and the photon energy respectively.The main objective of this preliminary study is to develop a laboratory scale photocatalytic degradation system for decomposition of organic pollutants in water. In this preliminary study, phenol in pure water was used as a model for organic pollutants. Phenol was employed in this study because in several previous reports it showed that the total phenolic compounds contained in some produced waters were in the concentration of approx. 20 ppm, whereas the threshold concentration for phenol in the effluent water allowed by the Indonesian government is only 2 ppm.The system developed consists of a glass vessel as the reactor equipped with a stirrer system and an aerator. The degradation was conducted in the reactor, in which a suspension mixture of TiO2 in the sample solution was irradiated with ultraviolet radiation. In this study, irradiation was carried out either with a series of ultraviolet lamps or by natural sunlight for approx. 1-8 hours. The capacity of the reactors and the concentration of TiO2 were varied between 0.25 to 10 liters and 0.1 to 0.4% respectively. The degradation efficiency of the system was measured by monitoring the concentration of phenol in the water sample during the decomposition process.This study demonstrates that, by using the UV lamp and the reactors with capacities of 0.25 - 2 liters, the system developed in this present work, is capable of decomposing 20 ppm phenol down to approximately 0 - 1 ppm, in 2 - 5 hours of radiation. However, by applying the 10 liter capacity reactor, the system is only applicable for reducing phenol content to approximately 11 ppm, in 5 hours of radiation. Improved degradation efficiency is observed when natural sunlight is used as the source of the photon energy. The reactor with the capacity of 10 liters, is applicable for reducing phenol to approximately 2 ppm in 8 hours of radiation. In order to develop a commercial degradation system, especially for minimizing the organic pollutants in produced water, further experiments are still required.