Jay Ha #3 advanced oxidation

I spent the past ten days or so doing number of experiments related to advanced oxidation of OH free radicals. Purpose of these experiments was to understand the kinetics and mechanism of advanced oxidation process that I would be using next week when I am conducting UV disinfection of E. Coli using hydrogen peroxide oxidation processes.

Four experiments were conducted this past week. First one was to find experimental concentration of hydrogen peroxide. Although the concentration of h2o2 can be easily calculated using the equation of 10*d*%/molecular weight, hydrogen peroxide tends to decompose itself after the container is initially unsealed, so it was necessary to find the concentration through experiments. The calculated value was 9.8M while the experimental average was 10.486M so this value was used for further experiments. 

Second set of experiments were the decomposition hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide were put to these   equipment containing 6, 4w UVC lamps. I extracted samples at varying time periods to see the rate at which h2o2 is decomposing since as 1 mole of h2o2 decomposes 2 moles of OH radicals are being created. This experiment was done in three varying concentrations of H2O2 solutions and the experiment was conducted twice to evaluate the error bounds.

Third experiment dealt with the production of 4-HBA acid. This was conducted because as produced OH radicals from decomposition of H2O2 combines with benzoic acid to produce 4-HBA and this value enables researcher to estimate the amount of OH radicals that are being produced and reacting to form other compounds. 

Last experiment was the decomposition of methleyne blue dye, and this was conducted because I can visually see the waste material (methleyen blue) being inactivated by OH radicals that decomposed from H2O2. 

This week was more tiring than other weeks in that there were so many data and graphs to work on, but it was kind of fun as well.