Use of carbon from the agricultural industry for the synthesis of catalysts destined to oxyanions removal from water.

Remediation of water contaminated with oxyanions is of great importance due to the toxicity and environmental persistence of these chemical species. The present work describes the elimination of different oxyanions in water using catalysts supported on active carbon obtained from an agricultural residue (peanut shells, C) and active commercial carbon (C) in order to compare their structural and catalytic properties. The synthesized C and C were fully characterized by surface analysis, TGA, TPR, SEM-EDX, FT-IR, and TEM.

Catalytic hydrogenation of nitrate in water: improvement of the activity and selectivity to N by using Rh(III)-hexamolybdate supported on ZrO-AlO.

Catalysts prepared on ZrO, AlO and ZrO-AlO (ZrAl-10) supported with Anderson heteropolyanion (RhMo) as active phase were investigated for the elimination of NO from water. Raman characterization of pure and supported RhMo phase showed the presence of polymolybdic species of different degrees of complexity when RhMo was supported. The temperature-programmed reduction study revealed the synergic effect between Rh and Mo species, through which the reducibility of Mo was promoted by Rh, and different phase/support interactions were verified.