Gomes, HelderFigueiredo, JoséFaria, Joaquim2010-01-192010-01-192006Gomes, Helder; Figueiredo, José (2006). Catalytic wet air oxidation of olive mill wastewater. In 1st European Conference on Environmental Applications of Advanced Oxidation Processes. Chania, Grécia.http://hdl.handle.net/10198/1325The objective of this work was to study the suitability of catalytic wet air oxidation (CWAO) for the treatment of olive mill wastewater (OMW). Accordingly, experiments were performed in a high pressure reactor at 100ºC and 200ºC under an oxygen partial pressure of 6.9 bar, using carbon supported platinum (1wt.% Pt) and iridium (5 wt.% Ir) catalysts prepared by incipient wetness impregnation. Both catalytic systems showed a very high activity in the total organic carbon (TOC) removal of the effluent, an increase in TOC removal relatively to non-CWAO being observed. At 200ºC, complete TOC and colour removal was obtained with the Pt/C catalyst after 8 h of reaction. At 100ºC, the results indicate that a certain fraction of compounds in the effluent (low molecular weight recalcitrant carboxylic acids)could not be removed even after prolonged reaction time. A kinetic model was developed taking into account catalytic and noncatalytic reaction, formation of refractory compounds and catalyst deactivation. A very good agreement between the model results and the CWAO experimental data at 200ºC was found. The results obtained in this work indicate that Pt/C is a promising catalyst for the CWAO of OMW.engCarbon supported catalystsCatalytic wet air oxidationOlive mill wastewaterPlatinum and iridium catalystsWastewater treatmentconference object