Deactivation characteristics of Ce-modified Cu-based carbon materials for catalytic wet air oxidation of phenol wastewater

In this paper, Ce-modified Cu-based carbon materials (Cu-Ce/AC) were prepared by impregnation method using walnut shell as the carbon precursor, Cu-ammonia solution as Cu source and Ce as modifier. The catalytic wet air oxidation (CWAO) degradation of phenol wastewater was carried out in a self-assembled fixed-bed reactor. The stability of Cu-Ce/AC catalyst under different pH conditions was studied. This study combines XRD, BET, FT-IR, ICP-OES and XPS characterization techniques to study the main reasons for the deactivation of Cu-Ce/AC catalysts. The reaction mechanism of Cu-Ce/AC catalytic wet air oxidation degradation of phenol was clarified. The result indicates that although phenol was completely converted in the CWAO process, the acidic intermediate product produced were difficult to completely degraded. Therefore, the pH of the solution gradually decreased. In acidic environment, the interaction between active component Cu and carbon carrier is weak, resulting in a large amount of metal leaching into the solution. As a result, the COD conversion gradually decreases. The alkaline environment can effectively slow down the leaching of catalyst Cu while maintaining its high catalytic activity. In addition, the incompletely degraded intermediate products are easy to accumulate and deposit on the Cu-Ce/AC surface, block the micropores and cover the surface-active sites, which reduces the catalyst activity. The study also found that there is a redox cycle between Cu+, Cu2+ Ce3+ and Ce4+ during phenol degradation, which enables Cu and Ce to form a strong interaction. The redox cycle can also promote the formation of oxygen vacancy (h+), O2−·, and HO·, making the degradation of phenol more thorough. At the same time, the mutual conversion between metal lattice oxygen and surface chemisorbed oxygen can generate high concentration of oxygen defect sites, which can improve the oxygen storage capacity of Cu-Ce/AC. These oxygen vacancies also provide more reactive sites to further promote adsorption and catalytic oxidation degradation of phenol and intermediate products.