Study on efficient degradation of polyvinyl alcohol in aqueous solution

Abstract

Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is widely used in nuclear power plant uniforms, these uniforms are usually sealed with cement after use because they are radioactive, but this will waste land resources. Therefore, to find a simple and effective chemical method to deal with them has become a scientific challenge. Although Fenton process needs further post-treatment, but it has a great advantage on the treatment of PVA fabric, meanwhile, it is one of the most effective methods to dispose organic pollutants at present. In this paper, we investigated the degradation of discarded polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fabric and PVA (1750) via Fenton process. Several potential factors were evaluated to describe the PVA fabric degrading efficiency and TOC removal rate, such as H2O2 dosage, the molar ratio of H2O2/Fe(NO3)2, initial pH value, reaction temperature, and reaction time. The optimum H2O2 dosage, the molar ratio of H2O2/Fe(NO3)2, initial pH value, reaction temperature, and reaction time were found to be 650 g, 10, 4, 50 °C, and 30 min, respectively. The viscosity-average molecular weight of PVA fabric was degraded from 130,293 to 420. The degrading efficiency and TOC removal rate were 99.96% and 99.97%, respectively. At last, the degradation mechanism and kinetics were studied in this paper.

Keywords

• Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fabric
• Fenton process
• Degradation
• Reaction mechanism