Catalytic combustion of volatile organic compounds on Indian Ocean manganese nodules Original Research Article

Catalytic combustion of acetone, methanol and 2-propanol as model volatile organic compounds (VOCs) has been measured over several manganese nodules of Indian Ocean origin in the temperature range 180–280°C. The catalytic activity of the nodules for the decomposition of these species is correlated with their chemical composition/surface properties (e.g. surface oxygen). CO2 and H2O are detected as the only combustion products of acetone and methanol at all reaction temperatures. In the case of 2-propanol, acetone and a small amount of propene are detected as byproducts. The formation of acetone and propene is correlated with the redox properties and silica content, respectively. These toxic effluents are further transformed to CO2 and H2O by passing over another catalytic reactor containing manganese nodules at 230°C. The catalytic activity of this naturally occurring material is also compared with synthetic δ-MnO2 and γ-FeOOH, which are the major components of manganese nodules. The iron-bearing phase, γ-FeOOH, has no contribution, while δ-MnO2 plays the major role (at the operating experimental conditions). It is observed that manganese nodules are effective enough for the destruction of VOCs and can be considered as low temperature oxidation catalysts.