Environmental Application of Catalytic Processes: Heterogeneous Liquid Phase Oxidation of Phenol With Hydrogen Peroxide

The authors review the status of heterogeneous catalytic oxidation processes with hydrogen peroxide as an oxidant in a liquid phase. They focus on the priority organic pollutant-phenol as one of the most common persistent organic water contaminants, toxic even at low concentrations. A wide range of heterogeneous catalysts is covered, with a special emphasis on rapidly developing new catalytic systems. Generally accepted mechanisms of the catalytic oxidation via the formation of the most abundant reaction intermediates and terminal products followed by the conceptual kinetic models developed especially for the oxidation of phenol with hydrogen peroxide are also discussed. Theoretical methods, widely used to gain a profound process understanding, such as factorial design and life-cycle assessment, are summarized with popularization of their main principles, based on the most recent studies. The main idea is to identify and resume the main points of interest and problems encountered, estimate the attribution of operation parameters for catalyst selectivity and activity, elucidate the role of reactive oxidizing species in the process, and evaluate process potential for the future applications.