
Highly efficient degradation of pharmaceutical sludge by catalytic wet oxidation using CuO-CeO2/γ-Al2O3 as a catalyst
Author(s) -
Xu Zeng,
Jun Liu,
Jianfu Zhao
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0199520
Subject(s) - catalysis , wet oxidation , degradation (telecommunications) , chemical oxygen demand , chemical engineering , scanning electron microscope , oxygen , materials science , volatile suspended solids , nuclear chemistry , catalytic oxidation , batch reactor , chemistry , waste management , wastewater , organic chemistry , composite material , telecommunications , computer science , engineering
Pharmaceutical sludge is considered as a hazardous material with high treatment and disposal costs. In the present study, the catalytic wet oxidation (CWO) of pharmaceutical sludge by CuO-CeO 2 /γ-Al 2 O 3 as the catalyst was investigated. The catalyst was prepared by traditional wet impregnation. The catalyst was characterized using X-ray Powder Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). CWO was performed in an experimental batch reactor. Several parameters that could affect the catalytic degradation efficiency, including catalyst dose, temperature, time, oxygen pressure and pH, were investigated. Under optimum conditions, the highest removal rate of volatile suspended solids (VSS) was 87.3% and was achieved at 260°C for 60 min with an oxygen pressure of 1.0 MPa and 10 g/L of catalyst. At the same time, the chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal rate reached as high as 72.6%. This work implies that catalytic wet oxidation is a promising method for the highly efficient degradation of pharmaceutical sludge.