Juan Xu, Kevin Johnson, Mingming Lu* Dept. of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Cincinnati (UC), Cincinnati OH, 45221 * Email: mingming.lu@uc.edu
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) refer a group of 209 congeners ranging from mono- to deca-chlorobiphenyls. PCBs have been widely used prior to 1970s in many applications due to their chemical and thermal stability, insulation and hydrophobicity, etc. Due to high toxicity and bioaccumulation, their production and use have been banned around the world. However, PCB remediation is still on-going due to past uses and improper disposals. Safe, practical, and low-cost treatment methods are still in demand. Catalytic hydro-dechlorigennation (HDC) has been effective in treating individual PCB compounds with one, two and three chlorines, at atmospheric pressure and mild temperatures. Aroclor 1232 is a mixture of PCB compounds with 32% of chlorine content. Its HDC process was experimentally studied in time series at different temperatures with different doses of catalysts. The degradation byproducts were quantified by GC-MS. Results to be presented include major contents of aroclor 1232, major products of the HDC reaction, the temperature effects, and catalytic dose effects, etc. A degradation pathway will also be proposed.
