Photocatalytic degradation of bezacryl yellow in batch reactors--feasibility of the combination of photocatalysis and a biological treatment.

A combined process coupling photocatalysis and a biological treatment was investigated for the removal of Bezacryl yellow (BZY), an industrial-use textile dye. Photocatalytic degradation experiments of BZY were carried out in two stirred reactors, operating in batch mode with internal or external irradiation. Two photocatalysts (TiO2P25 and TiO2PC500) were tested and the dye degradation was studied for different initial pollutant concentrations (10-117 mg L(-1)). A comparative study showed that the photocatalytic degradation led to the highest degradation and mineralization yields in a stirred reactor with internal irradiation in the presence of the P25 catalyst. Regardless of the photocatalyst, discoloration yields up to 99% were obtained for 10 and 20 mg L(-1) dye concentrations in the reactor with internal irradiation. Moreover, the first-order kinetic and Langmuir-Hinshelwood models were examined by using the nonlinear method for different initial concentrations and showed that the two models lead to completely different predicted kinetics suggesting that they were completely different.According to the BOD5/ Chemical oxygen demand (COD) ratio, the non-treated solution (20 mg L(-1) of BZY) was estimated as non-biodegradable. After photocatalytic pretreatment of bezacryl solution containing 20 mg/L of initial dye, the biodegradability test showed a BOD5/COD ratio of 0.5, which is above the limit of biodegradability (0.4). These results were promising regarding the feasibility of combining photocatalysis and biological mineralization for the removal of BZY.