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Volatile organic compounds abatement in metal and ceramic monolith reactors

Excessive emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the environment, which mainly result from different industrial plants and motor vehicles, greatly affect the quality of the air and thus the quality of life. Intensive research with the aim of reducing the concentrations of volatile organic compounds in the atmosphere has been done during last several decades. Recently, research in this area is focused on the application of process intensification methodology, which involves several approaches, such as integration of catalytic and adsorption processes and development and application of structured catalysts, in particular monolithic reactors. Here we present results of our research related to the development of a metal (Al/Al2O3-MnCuOx) and ceramic (Cordierite-MnCuOx) monolithic catalyst/reactors used for catalytic oxidation of a representative volatile organic compound. Toluene was chosen as a model component because it is used in various industries and is often emitted in the environment as a result of the production and use of different organic chemicals, solvents, dyes and similar products. The catalytic tests with monolith catalysts/reactors were carried out at different space times, changing the space times by varying the reaction mixture flow rate over constant monolith reactor length. Comparison of results obtained by the metal monolithic reactor (0.024 g catalytically active component) and ceramic monolithic reactor (0.065 g catalytically active component) at the same reaction conditions (448 K and 92 cm3 min-1) has shown the lower conversions of toluen (72.25 % vs. 98.59 %) over metal monolithic reactor. However, after comparison according to the intrinsic activity, metal monolithic reactor outperforms the ceramic one with almost twice the amount of converted toluen per gram of deposited catalytically active component per hour (1315.55 vs. 662.8 ( 〖mg〗_(converted toluene))/(g_catalyst h)). Finally, a one-dimensional (1D) heterogeneous model of the monolith reactor that included the interphase diffusion was proposed and the key parameters of the reactor model were estimated. It was confirmed that the proposed model describes experimental results very well and therefore can be successfully applied to describe catalytic performances of both reactors within the reaction conditions range used in this research.

Volatile organic compounds, metal and ceramic monolith reactors

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