EVALUATION AND PHOTOCATALYTIC DEGRADATION OFPOLYAROMATIC HYDROCARBONS IN PETROLEUM REFINERY WASTEWATER

Abstract

Due to the importance of Gulf area, the present study was performed indischarge basin around the Coastal area of petroleum Suez Company, which is located in the northwest of the Gulf. In our previous work, Sediment samples were collected from five stations at different distances along discharge basin of the company and the concentrations of Poly-aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) were determined in sediment samples. At all of the stations, the concentration of ΣPAHs was higher than the guideline value (4022ng g-1 ). The concentration of PAHs in the sediments ranged between 22333.983 up to 73597.864ng g -1 . In this work, different wt. % of Copper/TiO2was prepared by wet impregnation method. The prepared materials were studied by nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherm, X-ray diffraction, FTIR and Raman spectroscopy and high resolution transmission electron microscopy. The prepared materials were used to remove the Polyaromatic Hydrocarbons of the discharge basin of petroleum Suez Company by photocatalysis technique using batch reactor equipped with UV-vis solar light. Our results showed that the 0.09wt. % Cu/TiO2 has a higher photocatalytic activity in the photocatalytic degradation than 0.04wt. %. The polyaromtichydrocarbons in water were successfully removed after 240 min of irradiation