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Sonochemical production of hydrogen: A numerical model applied to the recovery of aqueous methanol waste under o xygen‐argon atmosphere
Author(s) -
Kerboua Kaouther,
Hamdaoui Oualid,
AlZahrani Saeed
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
environmental progress and sustainable energy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.495
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1944-7450
pISSN - 1944-7442
DOI - 10.1002/ep.13511
Subject(s) - methanol , hydrogen , argon , hydrogen production , chemistry , aqueous solution , bubble , wastewater , sonochemistry , chemical engineering , environmental engineering , organic chemistry , environmental science , physics , mechanics , engineering
The present paper consists of a numerical simulation that investigates the opportunity to treat wastewater contaminated with methanol by sonolysis. The technique offers a double benefit in regard to two axes: methanol degradation and hydrogen emergence. The adopted model based on the simultaneous evolutions of bubble dynamics, physical and chemical kinetics as well as thermodynamics parameters inside the bubble, resulted in very interesting trends of methanol degradation efficiency and percentage of recovery to hydrogen. On one hand, the sonolysis of wastewater containing 6 to 40% (vol/vol) of methanol conducts to more than 90% of elimination efficiency under an atmosphere of 40% molar of argon. On the other hand, hydrogen production attains an optimum within a solution of 40% (vol/vol) of methanol under 50% molar of argon. The best combination of both axes is retrieved in the case of wastewater containing 20% (vol/vol) of methanol and saturated with 70% molar of argon; it leads to the elimination of 99.9% of the alcohol, and the conversion of the equivalent of 59% of the molar yield of degraded methanol to hydrogen.