Catalytic Wet Air Oxidation of Oxalic Acid

Dr. Shyamal Roy completed both BE and ME in Chemical Engineering in the year of 2005 and 2007 respectively from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India and Ph.D in Chemical Engineering in the year of 2012 from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India. He worked with R&D,BPCL and also worked as a Postdoctoral fellow at Washington University.

Oxidation of oxalic acid was carried out in a four-neck glass reactor operated at atmospheric pressure. Most of the experiments were performed using Pt/Al2O3 and ceria promoted Pt/Al2O3 catalysts. The catalysts were prepared by excess solution impregnation (ESI) method. Catalysts supported on alumina with different Pt loadings (0.2 to 0.7 wt %) and different ceria contents (2 to 15 wt %) were prepared. The surface morphology of the prepared catalysts was investigated using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) analyzer. Their phases were analyzed with powder X-ray diffraction. In addition to these the characterization was enriched by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), nitrogen adsorption, chemisorptions and thermo-gravimetric (TGA) analysis. Non-catalytic and catalytic wet air oxidation of oxalic acid using ZnO, CeO2, Al2O3, Pt/Al2O3 and ceria promoted Pt/Al2O3 was carried out. The degradation of oxalic acid obtained by CWAO was found to be much higher as compared to non-catalytic oxidation. The various parameters such as size of the catalyst particle, air flow rate and agitation speed, catalyst dosage and loading, initial concentration of oxalic acid were studied.