Monoethanolamine (MEA) Wastewater Treatment using Photo-Fenton Oxidation

The aim of this project is to study the removal efficiency of monoethanolamine (MEA) in wastewater using a type of advanced oxidation process(AOP) which is photo-Fenton oxidation process. MEA is an organic compound that
possesses the properties ofweak base in its aqueous form. This makes MEA useful for scrubbing acidic gases such as carbon dioxide, C02 in flue gas from oil and gas
industries. However, small portion of MEA is carried out during the process and being discharged into the wastewater and. The organic properties ofMEA make it
resilience to the conventional wastewater treatment such as activated sludge treatment. Hence, possible ways of treating MEA have been studied such as using adsorption method and membrane technology. In this project, another potential method is being observed, which is using photo-Fenton oxidation. Photo-Fenton oxidation is a method of producing hydroxy1radical from reaction of ferrous ion,
Fe2+ and hydrogen peroxide, H202 with UV light enhancing the process through photoreduction. From experiments conducted, the results show that higher removal
of Total Organic Carbon (TOC) in the MEA wastewater after being treated using photo-Fenton oxidation which is 94.47%, compared to the conventional Fenton oxidation at 93.15%. It is also found that the optimum concentration of ferrous ion is at 0.014 Mwhereby for hydrogen peroxide, the optimum concentration is at 1.6 M
with both giving highest TOC removal at 99.93%. The results prove that the percentage ofTOC removal is higher with presence ofUV light compared to without
UV light This is because more hydroxyl radicals are produced through photoreduction and increase the rate ofMEA mineralization to form the degradation product. The optimum concentration of ferrous ion and hydrogen peroxide can be explained by the scavenging effect due to excess amount of both reactants for the oxidation process. This is why the optimum concentration is not found to be at the highest amounttested inthe experiment.