Intensification of phenol biocatalytic oxidation by activators of oxygen interfacial transport
Transport of oxygen from the gas phase to the aqueous determines the rate of biocatalytic oxidation of phenol. In this paper, activators of the interphase transfer of O2 are used to intensify the process, thus significantly increase the rate of gas arrival in the reaction space without additional power consumption in contrast to the widely used methods of mixing and bubbling. The authors presented the results of studies of the effect a number of substances on the value of KLa at varying mixing speeds from 100 to 1200 rpm. We report the first solid-liquid phase and activators are compared for effectiveness. The maximum KLa increase at different hydrodynamic conditions achieved for the activated carbon (3,7 times), aerosil (1,5 times), n-dodecane (3,1 times). The results are explained by «shuttle» mechanism of O2 phase transfer. It is shown that an KLa increasing from 2,8 to 18,5 h-1 the biocatalytic oxidation of phenol is accelerated in 2,4 times. Use of activated carbon as an activator of O2 phase transfer allows you to increase the speed of biocatalytic oxidation of phenol up about 20 %.