Catalytic wet air oxidation for the treatment of emulsifying wastewater.

The wet air oxidation (WAO) and catalytic WAO (CWAO) of the high strength emulsifying wastewater containing nonionic surfactants have been investigated in terms of COD and TOC removal. The WAO and homogeneous CWAO processes were carried out at the temperature from 433 K to 513 K, with initial oxygen pressure 1.2 MPa. It was found that homogeneous catalyst copper(Cu(NO3)2) had an fairly good catalytic activity for the WAO process, and the oxidation was catalyzed when the temperature was higher than 473 K. Moreover, several heterogeneous catalysts were proved to be effective for the WAO process. At the temperature 473 K, after 2 h reaction, WAO process could achieve about 75% COD removal and 66% TOC removal, while catalysts Cu/Al2O3 and Mn-Ce/Al2O3 elevated the COD removal up to 86%--89% and that of TOC up to 82%. However, complete elimination of COD and TOC was proved to be difficult even the best non-noble catalyst was used. Therefore, the effluent from WAO or CWAO process need to be further disposed. The bioassay proved that the effluent from WAO process was amenable to the biochemical method.