Oxidation of Dimethyl Sulfoxide in Aqueous Solution Using Microbubbles

• Published in: Industrial & engineering chemistry research Vol. 48; no. 17; pp. 8048 - 8053
• Main Authors: Li, Pan, Tsuge, Hideki, Itoh, Keiko
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Chemical Society 02-09-2009
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Chemical engineering; Exact sciences and technology; Process Design and Control; Reactors; Oxidation; Aqueous solution
• ISSN: 0888-5885; 1520-5045
• DOI: 10.1021/ie801565v

A large quantity of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) wastewater is discharged from washing and rinsing processes in semiconductor manufacturing industry. Traditional biological treatment is known to be difficult for the treatment of DMSO-containing wastewater because of odor problems. Ozonation of DMSO combined with a biological process is suggested to be a cost-efficient treatment solution, whereas the application of ozone to wastewater treatment has been limited by its low utilization efficiency and high cost. In this study, we applied an ozone microbubble generator to increase ozone transfer efficiency in the aqueous solution. The oxidation of DMSO by ozone microbubbles was investigated in a bubble column reactor with an inner diameter of 20 cm. We studied the dependence of DMSO degradation on the gas and liquid flow rates. Experimental results indicate that the ozonation of DMSO is a first-order mass-transfer-controlled reaction and the reaction rate constant increases with increasing gas velocity. Ozone transfer ratio increases with decrease in gas flow rate.