Nanofiltration of partial oxidation products and copper from catalyzed wet peroxidation of phenol Original Research Article

The aim of this work is to study the combination of Catalytic Wet Peroxide Oxidation (CWPO) and nanofiltration processes in the treatment of phenol solutions. A home-made Cu-chitosan/Al2O3 catalyst was applied for this purpose. The effluent from CWPO usually contains some metal leached from the catalyst in addition to latter oxidation intermediates (short chain organic acids). Downstream nanofiltration is used to retain the metal leached from the catalyst, which would result in secondary pollution and negatively impact on a possible subsequent biological treatment step.