Multi-way Degradation and Process Optimization of Phenol from Simulated Wastewater System

Abstract

This research was based on the comparative study between microbial, enzymatic and photocatalytic phenol degradation. Different experiments were carried out under three distinct methodologies that seeked to examine which method is more feasible between them through various aspects. For the microbial study, E. coli was used for phenol degradation at an optimum condition of E. coli. In the enzymatic study, peroxidase was extracted from soybean seed hulls, and it was purified. The purified peroxidase enzyme was applied in phenolic solution at neutral pH. The H2O2/UV/TiO2 scheme was adopted in the photocatalytic treatment of phenol. Maximum phenol degradation was observed in photo catalysis. From this comparative study, a microbial method was found to be more time consuming and an enzymatic method require more steps to perform the experiment while photo catalysis took less time with a more feasible results.