Ni/Fe-supported over hydrotalcites precursors as catalysts for clean and selective oxidation of Basic Yellow 11: reaction intermediates determination.

In this work, Basic Yellow 11 (BY 11) was employed as model compound to study catalytic wet air oxidation as a pre-treatment step to the conventional biological oxidation. Ni and Fe catalysts supported over hydrotalcite (HT) were prepared by incipient wetness and excess impregnation to obtain catalysts with different metal loadings (from 1 to 10 wt.%). HTs were synthesized by co-precipitation and characterized with XRD, X-ray fluorescence (XRF), BET, thermogravimetric analysis and SEM. Results showed that dye conversion increased with Ni and Fe content up to 7 wt.% and that the most effective catalyst were prepared by incipient wetness impregnation. The influence of metal loading in the catalyst, and the preparation method as well as the reaction conditions was investigated. A mechanism and reaction pathways for BY 11 during catalytic liquid phase oxidation have also been proposed.