Studies on removal of phenol sulfonic acid-syntan in aqueous medium using ozonation

ABSTRACT

The removal of phenol sulfonic acid-syntan (PSAS) in terms of chemical oxygen demand (COD) was studied at different pH, ozone and initial PSAS concentrations and the optimum condition was found to be pH 7, ozone concentration of 5.2 × 10⁻³mmol/L and initial PSAS concentration of 500 mg/L. The increase in BOD₅/COD ratio confirmed the bio-treatability of ozonated PSAS effluent. The excitation–emission matrix intensity and Fourier transmission infra-red spectroscopy confirmed the generation of intermediate by-product during degradation of PSAS. The ozonation of PSAS was found to obey fast regime pseudo-first-order reaction with a rate constant of 3.7 × 10^–9 mol⁻¹ s⁻¹. The mean oxidation state of carbon value between +2 and +3 confirmed that the ozonation of PSAS resulted in partial mineralization.

KEYWORDS:

• COD
• EEM
• ozone
• rate constant
• syntan

ORCID

Rema Thankappan http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0722-3357

S. V. Srinivasan http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7169-9400

Mika Sillanpää http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3247-5337

Acknowledgement

Rema Thankappan would like to acknowledge her earlier supervisor, Late Dr R. Alwar Ramanujam, for encouraging this research work and providing the facilities. The authors also wish to thank Dr Indumathi M. Nambi, Assistant professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, for providing the facility for HPLC analysis. The authors are also thankful to Mr. Boopathi, Lecturer, School of Chemical Engineering, Addis Ababa Institute of Technology (AIT), Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

  Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/09593330.2017.1355936.

Additional information

Funding

Rema Thankappan would like to acknowledge CSIR, Delhi for granting CSIR – Senior Research fellowship for carrying out this work [grant number 31/6/271/2007].