Analysis of Primary Degradation and Decolourization of Dyes in Water by an H2O2/UV Advanced Oxidation Process

Abstract

AbstractSynthetic dyes are extensively used in textile dyeing, paper printing, colour photography, pharmaceuticals, food, cosmetics and other industries. In spite of their diversity there are a certain number of properties common to many dye compounds, such as aromatic constitution, chromophore groups and others. Similarly to other dyes and due to the formation of colour intermediates, in the case of Rhodamine 6G colour capacity is maintained in the initial steps of dye degradation. For this reason in the degradation of a dye it is necessary to distinguish between two processes that take place simultaneously: dye removal and decolourization. This study was conducted by using a water solution of 50 mg/L of Rhodamine 6G (Rh-6G), as a model of a dye wastewater, in the hydrogen peroxide/UV system. The kinetic model proposed in this paper for the removing of Rh- 6G is a sequential first-order reaction. This model describes acceptably the changes in two kinds of compound for a wide interval of H