New research article published!

Our recent paper on the development of a flat-plate solar reactor for environmental photocatalysis was published in the journal of Environmental Science and Pollution Research (ESPR) this week. You can check it on the following link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11356-020-11806-9

In this work, we aimed at investigating the possibility of improving the efficiency of solar-driven photocatalysis by adopting a novel reactor design based on microfluidic principles using 3D-printable geometries. The printed reactors cost less than $1 per piece, which is ideal for proposing scaling out by numbering-up. The reactors were packed with 1.0-mm glass and steel beads coated with ZnO synthesised by a sol-gel routine, resulting in a bed with 46.6% void fraction (reaction volume of ca. 840 μL and equivalent flow diameter of 580 μm) and a specific surface area of 3200 m2 m−3. Photocatalytic experiments, under sunlight-level UV-A irradiation, showed that reactors packed with steel supports had apparent reaction rates ca. 75% higher than those packed with glass supports for the degradation of an aqueous solution of acetaminophen; however, they were strongly deactivated after the first use suggesting poor fixation. So, we still have some important room for improvement here! Glass supports, however, showed no measurable deactivation after three consecutive uses. The apparent first-order reaction rate constants were between about ten times faster than the observed for conventional slurry reactors. The mass transfer was shown to be efficient (Sh > 7.7) despite the catalyst being immobilised onto fixed substrates. This work was an outcome of the research project "Development of innovative reactors and treatments for solar water decontamination" sponsored by the Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP 2018/21721-6) and the collaboration of two dedicated undergraduate students.