Experimental Investigation of Taylor Vortex Photocatalytic Reactor for Water Purification

Abstract

A Taylor vortex photocatalytic reactor was developed that creates unsteady Taylor-Couette flow in between the two co-axial cylinders by re-circulating fluids form bulk to the inner cylinder wall, which was coated with TiO₂. Systematic investigation for flow development as well as photocatalytic degradation of three different organic compounds was carried out. The effect of Reynolds number and catalyst loading on photocatalytic degradation were compared for both slurry and fixed catalyst system. The experimental results demonstrate that Taylor vortex photocatalytic reactor is promising for water purification even when catalyst is fixed, as there is no significant difference in overall degradation rate between slurry and immobilized systems.