Characteristics of CuO-MoO3-P2O5 catalyst and its catalytic wet oxidation (CWO) of dye wastewater under extremely mild conditions.

In order to develop a catalyst with high activity for catalytic wet oxidation (CWO) processing at lower temperatures (35 degrees C) and atmospheric pressure, a new CuO-MoO3-P2O5 catalystwas synthesized by a solid-state reaction method and was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transformation infrared spectrometer (FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), selected area electronic diffraction (SAED), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDXS) for elemental mapping. Methylene blue (MB) was adopted to investigate the catalytic activity of CuO-MoO3-P2O5 in CWO processing. The results show that this new catalyst has a high catalytic activity to decolorize MB under mild condition. The color removal of MB (the initial concentration was 0.3 g L(-1) and initial pH was 5) can reach to 99.26% within 10 min at 35 degrees C and atmospheric pressure. Catalyst lifespan and selectivity were also tested, and the results show that after the catalyst was used three times, catalyst activity still remains. Selectivity testing shows that CuO-MoO3-P2O5 has high catalytic activity on degradation of MB, whereas this catalyst has less impact on methyl orange (the color removal was 99.65% for MB and 55% for methyl orange under the same conditions). According to the experimental results, a possible mechanism of catalytic degradation of MB was proposed.