Photocatalysis of gaseous trichloroethylene (TCE) over TiO2: The effect of oxygen and relative humidity on the generation of dichloroacetyl chloride (DCAC) and phosgene

Batch photocatalytic degradation of 80 ± 2.5 ppmV trichloroethylene (TCE) was conducted to investigate the effect of the oxygen and relative humidity (RH) on the formation of the dichloroacetyl chloride (DCAC) and phosgene. Based on the simultaneous ordinary differential equations (ODEs), the reaction rate constants of TCE ((2.31 ± 0.28) ∼ (9.41 ± 0.63) × 10−2 min−1) are generally larger than that of DCAC ((0.94 ± 1.25) ∼ (9.35 ± 1.71) × 10−3 min−1) by approximate one order. The phenomenon indicates the degradation potential of TCE is superior to that of DCAC. DCAC appreciably delivers the same degradation behavior with TCE that means there exists an optimum RH and oxygen concentration for photocatalysis of TCE and DCAC. At the time the peak yield of DCAC appears, the conversion ratio based on the carbon atom from TCE to DCAC is within the range of 30-83% suggesting that the DCAC generation is significantly attributed to TCE degradation. Regarding the phosgene formation, the increasing oxygen amount leads to the inhibitory effect on the phosgene yield which fall within the range of 5-15%. The formation mechanism of phosgene was also inferred that the Cl atoms attacking the C-C bond of DCAC results to the generation of phosgene rather than directly from the TCE destruction.