Mineralization of sulfolane in aqueous solutions by Ozone/CaO2 and Ozone/CaO with potential for field application.

Mineralization of sulfolane in aqueous systems by CaO2/O3 and CaO/O3 was investigated in this study. If 1.6 g/L of oxidants (CaO2 and CaO) were used along with 5 L/min of O3 in a batch reactor, degradation of sulfolane followed a pseudo-first order kinetics model. Both sulfolane and TOC were totally removed in less than 40 and 150 min respectively. For these treatments, the pH of the aqueous solutions was above 11, which made O3 more effective in removing sulfolane. However, the high pH of the solution didn't improve TOC removal. For TOC removal the presence of CaO2 and CaO was necessary. Once these conditions were optimised in the lab, field experiments were designed and evaluated to treat contaminated ground water samples. The field tests were successful in mineralization of sulfolane within a reasonable time (4 h). Sulfolane degradation took 150 min in these experiments. The pH of the water samples was brought to near neutral (pH = 6.5) by bubbling CO2.