In this thesis, the photochemical and photocatalytic degradation of atenolol (ATL) and 2-phenylbenzimidazole-5-sulfonic acid (PBSA) have been investigated in aqueous solutions. Our results show that direct photolysis of ATL is weak and the indirect photolysis, e.g., induced by photosensitizers such as nitrate, may contributed to its major loss process in natural sunlit waters. In the case of PBSA, direct photolysis is found to be important while the indirect photolysis may play a less important role in its elimination in natural surface waters. The photolytic reactions (either direct or indirect) generally obey pseudo-first-order kinetics and can be influence by the solution pH, the co-existence of other water constituents such as dissolved organic matter (DOM) and bicarbonate ion (HCO3-). The photolytic degradation lead to a variety of intermediates and products. However, the reduction in TOC of the photolysis is usually found to be insignificant compared to the disappearance of the mother compound. Nevertheless, the observed decrease in toxicity toward fresh water species D. magna in nitrate-induced photodegradation of ATL implies indirect photolysis of ATL is possibly an important way to reduce the toxicity to ecosystem. It should be noted that direct and indirect photodegradation may process through different pathways and mechanism as observed in the photolysis of PBSA in this work. Photocatalytic oxidation of ATL and PBSA were carried out in illuminated aqueous TiO2 suspensions. Photocatalytic reactions normally follow pseudo-first-order kinetics. The kinetics are strongly affected by the photocatalyst type, the photocatalyst dosage, the solution pH value and the substrate concentration. Hydroxyl radical (HO*) was determined to be the major reactive specie responsible for the remarkable degradation of mother compounds. The degradation efficiency is largely influenced by the water matrices as well as the formation and transformation of intermediates. It should be noted that Degussa P25 showed the highest photocatalytic activity for oxidizing ATL and PBSA compared to pure anatase or rutile catalyst such as Hombikat UV 100, Millennium PC 500 and Aldrich rutile, which is in line with previous reports. The photocatalytic degradation of mother compounds results in the formation of various intermediates (e.g., formic, oxalic, malonic acid) and inorganic ions (e.g., NH4+, NO3-, SO42-). TOC decreases much more slowly as compared to the disappearance of the mother compounds, however, complete mineralization could be obtained with longer irradiation time
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:CCSD/oai:tel.archives-ouvertes.fr:tel-01058226 |
| Date | 19 May 2014 |
| Creators | Ji, Yuefei |
| Publisher | Université Claude Bernard - Lyon I |
| Source Sets | CCSD theses-EN-ligne, France |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | PhD thesis |
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