The correlation between photocatalytic oxidation performance and chemical/physical properties of indoor volatile organic compounds

Kuo Pin Yu, Grace W.M. Lee*, Wei Ming Huang, Chihcheng Wu, Shinhao Yang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

68 Scopus citations

Abstract

In this study, six species of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), n-hexane, iso-butanol, toluene, p-xylene, m-xylene, and mesitylene, were selected as the target pollutants to investigate how the photocatalytic oxidation (PCO) performance is related to their physical/chemical properties. The PCO kinetics were well fit by a Langmuir-Hinshelwood (L-H) model for bimolecular surface reaction and competitive adsorption at gas flow rate above 1000 mL min -1 (reaction-controlling region), where the gas-phase mass transfer effect was negligible. The rate constants of PCO for toluene, p-xylene, m-xylene, and mesitylene ranged from 1.22 to 4.00 μmol m-2 s -1, and were proportional to VOC-hydroxyl radical rate constant (kOH). The Langmuir adsorption constants of the four aromatic VOCs investigated and water ranged from 0.95 to 1.35 ppm-1 and from 5.61×10-3 to 1.44×10-3 ppm-1, respectively. A strongly linear positive relationship was found between the reciprocal of the Langmuir adsorption constants of the four aromatic VOCs investigated and Henry's Law constants. Conversely, the reciprocal of Langmuir adsorption constants of water showed a strong negative relationship with Henry's Law constants (in units kPa m3 mol-1) of the four aromatic VOCs investigated. The relationships noted above were not found between different classes of VOCs (n-hexane, iso-butanol, and aromatic VOCs investigated). The percentage of residual intermediates (partially oxidized and incompletely mineralized organic compound from the primary VOCs) decreased as the inlet VOCs concentration decreased.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)375-385
Number of pages11
JournalAtmospheric Environment
Volume40
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2006

Keywords

  • Aromatic hydrocarbons
  • CO yield rate
  • Henry's Law constant
  • Hydroxyl radical
  • Langmuir-Hinshelwood model
  • Photocatalytic rate constant

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