Catalytic Wet Air Oxidation (CWAO) of Industrial Wastewaters: Mechanistic Evidences, Catalyst Development and Kinetic Modeling

Huge water consumptions and pollutants releases in the environment urge effective water decontamination technologies, fostering extensive recycle and reuse of industrial process-water and wastewater. The heterogeneous catalytic wet air oxidation (CWAO) offers a practical solution to the problem of decontamination of industrial effluents characterised by high concentration of toxic-refractory compounds, which are also detrimental for the active sludge of biological systems. Therefore, this work shows the superior CWAO performance of a new class of nanostructured MnCeOx catalysts toward the mineralization of some common toxic and refractory industrial pollutants. Mechanistic and kinetic evidences are summarised into a Langmuir-Hinshelwood reaction mechanism, leading to a formal kinetic model predicting the CWAO performance of nanostructured MnCeOx catalysts and optimum reaction conditions.