VUV GAS-PHASE PHOTOOXIDATION - A NEW TOOL FOR THE DEGRADATION OF VOCSIN AIR

The growing concern about emissions of hazardous Volatile Organic Comp ounds (VOCs), particularly in urban areas, has strengthened the requir ements for purification of exhaust gases and waste effluents. Conventi onal procedures to treat contaminated water just transfer the pollutan ts to other phases (gaseous, adsorption on solids), but do not elimina te them. Improvements made in the fields of membrane technique and pho tooxidation allow the combination of both procedures to open an effect ive way to treat waste water and degrade the separated contaminants in a continuous process. Membrane pervaporation permits to remove organi c pollutants from water and transfers them into the gas phase which pa sses through a Vacuum-UV irradiation zone leading to their complete ox idative degradation. In this paper the VUV gas phase photooxidation of tetrahydrofurane (THF) is examined.