Photocatalytic hydrogen energy evolution from sugar beet wastewater

Abstract

Hydrogen is a clean, environmentally friendly, storable, and sustainable green energy source as well as a potential fuel. It could be produced from various biomass, wastewater, or other sources by different processes. In this study, hydrogen was evolved from sucrose model solution and real sugar beet wastewater by photocatalytic oxidation using a perovskite catalyst under solar light irradiation. In this context, firstly, the graphene supported LaFeO3 (GLFO) was synthesized and then, a characterization study shows that GLFO is successfully synthesized. To optimize the reaction parameters (pH, catalyst loading, and initial hydrogen peroxide concentration), an experimental matrix was created using the Box Behnken model. Whereas the highest hydrogen evolution from sucrose model solution was observed as 3520 μmol/gcat, the highest hydrogen evolution from sugar beet wastewater was obtained as 7035 μmol/gcat. The highest TOC removal (99.73 %) from sugar beet wastewater was also achieved at the same reaction conditions.