Photodegradation of phthalic anhydride using hybrid oxalate-pyrite/chitosan catalyst / Nurul Diyana Binti Mat Husin

Faculty of Chemical and Process Engineering Technology

Final Year Report (Bachelor of Chemical Engineering Technology) -- Universiti Malaysia Pahang Al-Sultan Abdullah - 2024

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Untreated wastewater poses a global health and environmental hazard due to its toxic and plastic content. A beneficial modification for phthalic anhydride to create the highperformance adsorbent would be hybrid pyrite/chitosan. For instance, it showed that covering pyrite with chitosan considerably enhanced the effectiveness of ion adsorption in an aqueous solution. Addressing cost and environmental concerns, the objective is to study the performance of hybrid oxalate-pyrite/chitosan and to study the effect of pH (3- 11), catalyst dosage (0.5-6.0 g/L), and concentration of organic pollutants (5-20 mg/L) in photocatalytic degradation of phthalic anhydride under visible light irradiation. For the photocatalytic study, the phthalic anhydride with 5mg/L concentration and the oxalatepyrite/ chitosan of 0.5g/L dosage were put into the reactor with a magnetic stirrer. The reactor was then exposed to UV light for photocatalytic degradation to occur. Every sample was extracted at 30-minute intervals and the absorbance of each sample was observed using the GENESYS UV-Vis Spectrophotometer. The results shows that the performance of hybrid catalyst was superior compared to oxalate-pyrite and chitosan. The optimum condition of phthalic anhydride for pH is 7 with degradation rate of 86.6%, catalyst dosage of 6 g/L with degradation rate of 98.94%, initial concentration of 5 mg/L with degradation rate of 54.4%. The optimal degradation percentages of phthalic anhydride in hybrid oxalate-pyrite/chitosan were 82.32%. Notably, higher degradation rates correlate with lower initial pollutant concentrations and higher catalyst dosage. The hybrid method exhibits superior performance, particularly effective for phthalic anhydride removal and plastic industry.