Oxidation of Methyl Tert-Butyl Ether in Aqueous Solution by an Ozone/UV Process

In this paper, the oxidation of methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) in aqueous solution by an ozone/ultraviolet (UV) process was described. The oxidation process was investigated experimentally in a semibatch reactor under various operational conditions, i.e., ozone gas dosage, UV light intensity, and water quality in terms of varying bicarbonate concentration. The ozone/UV process was very successful in oxidizing MTBE. The rate of removal of MTBE increased when the incident UV light intensity increased for the same concentration of influent ozone gas. Similarly, an increase in influent ozone gas concentration resulted in faster removal of MTBE for the same incident UV light intensity. However, bicarbonate in the range of 2–8 mM showed no significant effect on MTBE removal for MTBE concentration (~1.0 mM) used in this study. Moreover, it was observed that the reaction intermediates could react well in the ozone/UV process, and complete mineralization could be achieved by the ozone/UV process, if desired.