• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.129-140
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• 2023

The appropriate injection of H₂O₂ is essential to produce hydroxyl radicals (OH·) by mixing H₂O₂ quickly and exposing the resulting H₂O₂ solution to UV irradiation. This study focused on evaluating mixing device of H₂O₂ as a design factor of UV/H₂O₂ AOP pilot plant using a surface water. The experimental investigation involved both experimental and model-based analyses to evaluate the mixing effect of different devices available for the H₂O₂ injection of a tubular hollow pipe, elliptical type of inline mixer, and nozzle-type injection mixer. Computational fluid dynamics analysis was employed to model and simulate the mixing devices. The results showed that the elliptical type of inline mixer showed the highest uniformity of 95%, followed by the nozzle mixer with 83%, and the hollow pipe with only 18%, after passing through each mixing device. These results indicated that the elliptical type of inline mixer was the most effective in mixing H₂O₂ in a bulk. Regarding the pressure drops between the inlet and outlet of pipe, the elliptical-type inline mixer exhibited the highest pressure drop of 15.8 kPa, which was unfavorable for operation. On the other hand, the nozzle mixer and hollow pipe showed similar pressure drops of 0.4 kPa and 0.3 kPa, respectively. Experimental study showed that the elliptical type of inline and nozzle-type injection mixers worked well for low concentration (less than 5mg/L) of H₂O₂ injection within 10% of the input value, indicating that both mixers were appropriate for required H₂O₂ concentration and mixing intensity of UV/ H₂O₂ AOP process. Additionally, the elliptical-type inline mixer proved to be more stable than the nozzle-type injection mixer when dealing with highly concentrated pollutants entering the UV/H₂O₂ AOP process. It is recommended to use a suitable mixing device to meet the desired range of H₂O₂ concentration in AOP process.