benzene and mtbe removal by fenton’s process using stabilized nano zero-valent iron particles

A bench-scale study was designed for removal of methyl tertio butyl ether (mtbe) and benzene from south of tehran groundwater. the experiments were implemented on a one-dimensional soil column with similar chemical and physical conditions of the region. fenton’s chemical oxidation with stabilized nano zero-valent iron particles (s-nzvi) as catalyst was used. for treatment of groundwater polluted with 2 mg l^-1 mtbe and 1 mg l^-1 benzene, optimum concentrations of h2o2 and s-nzvi were 1500 and 300 mg l^-1, respectively. the optimum concentrations led to 78 % elimination of mtbe and 87 % of benzene. hazardous by-products (acetone and tertio-butyl alcohol) concentrations were less than 0.1 mg l^-1, which were considered to be negligible. the soil permeability was reduced to 30 % after removal process. to increase the system efficiency and reduce the consumption of iron, the reaction environment was acidified down to ph = 3.2 led to removal efficiency of 90 % and 96 % for mtbe and benzene, respectively. the scavengers (ions) reduced the system efficiency up to 15 %. this study indicates that theoretically the mtbe and benzene could be removed from groundwater using fenton’s chemical oxidation with s-nzvi.