Background

The widespread use of trichloroethylene (TCE) and its frequent release into the environment has caused many environmental and health problems. In this study the degradation of TCE at different micromolar concentrations was investigated in a stainless steel reactor with various concentrations of H₂O₂ and TiO₂ at different oxygen pressures and three different pHs.

Methods

To examine the synergistic effect of under pressure oxygen on TCE degradation, the concentrations of H₂O₂ and TiO₂ as well as pH were first optimized, and then the experiments were performed under optimal conditions. Gas chromatography with a flame ionization detector (FID) was used to measure TCE concentrations.

Results

Results showed that the percentage of TCE degradation without pressurized oxygen was low and it increased with increasing pressure of oxygen at all initial concentrations of TCE. The degradation percentages without oxygen pressure were 48.27%, 51.22%, 58.13% and 64.33% for TCE concentrations of 3000, 1500, 300 and 150 μg/L respectively. At an oxygen pressure of 2.5 atmospheres (atm) the percent degradation of TCE reached 84.85%, 89.14%, 93.13% and 94.99% respectively for the aforementioned TCE concentrations.

Conclusions

The results of this study show that the application of dissolved oxygen under pressure increases the efficiency of the H₂O₂/TiO₂ process on the degradation of TCE and can be used along with other oxidants as an effective method for the removal of this compound from aqueous solutions.