Kinetic modeling of wet peroxide oxidation with a carbon black catalyst

•A kinetic model is proposed on the basis of the reaction pathway.•The model includes a set of power-law expressions for all the species involved.•Phenol is mainly oxidized to by-products (≈57 mol.%) and also mineralized (≈18 mol.%).•Phenol can also evolve to condensation by-products, ≈25 mol.%.•The aromatic intermediates are mostly mineralized.

A kinetic model has been developed describing the rate of hydrogen peroxide consumption and target pollutant (phenol) degradation in CWPO with a commercial carbon black as catalyst. The model allows following the evolution of the oxidation by-products (up to 12) through a detailed reaction pathway. The kinetic parameters were obtained by fitting the experimental results in batch reactor runs at T = 90-130 °C, P = 4 bar, [Phenol]0 = 1 g/L, [catalyst] = 0-10 gcat/L and the theoretical stoichiometric amount of hydrogen peroxide for complete mineralization of phenol (5 g/L). The results were subjected to the analysis of variance (ANOVA). The model includes a set of power-law expressions with different reaction orders which provides a complete description of the process and allows obtaining the efficiency of hydrogen peroxide consumption under giving operating conditions.

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