Solar photoreactors comparison based on oxalic acid photocatalytic degradation

Solar heterogeneous photocatalytic degradation of oxalic acid in water is carried out in four different solar photoreactors: a parabolic trough concentrator (PC), a tubular collector (TC), a compound parabolic collector (CPC), and a V-trough collector (VC). The reactors operate under equal conditions of solar irradiance, collection surface and fluid flow rate to ensure a better comparison between the systems. The effects of TiO2 catalyst concentration and radiation incidence angle on the degradation are studied. Oxalic acid degrades without appreciable generation of intermediates, and a simple kinetic model is proposed to describe the process. There are differences in the degradation rates depending on the collector geometry. The CPC shows the best overall performance in terms of accumulated energy, followed closely by the VC. Incidence angle affects the total amount of energy collected but does not reduce very much the efficiency of the reactors to use this energy in the photocatalytic process. 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.