As a treatment for the industrial dye wastewater, this paper proposes a novel method of the microwave catalytic oxidation degradation (MCOD) using CuO/AC catalyst, and this novel method is used for the treatment of the crystal violet contaminant as a model wastewater in the aqueous solution without adding oxidant. The activated carbon-supported copper oxide (CuO/AC) is prepared by using the impregnation method and is characterized by using the XRD and the FT-IR. The effects of the metal loadings, the microwave catalyst dosage, the microwave power, the irradiation time and the initial crystal violet concentration on the degradation are investigated. It is shown that the removal rate of the crystal violet reaches up to 99.48%, with the removal rate of TOC being 90.4% under the optimized conditions: 0.8% of the CuO loading, 400 W of the MW power, 0.6 g of the dosage of the microwave catalyst, 6 min of the reaction time, and 100 mg/L of the initial concentration. The experiment of adding several different radical scavengers shows that the hydroxyl radicals (·OH) exist in the reaction process. The results indicate that the microwave catalytic oxidation degradation method could degrade the crystal violet wastewater effectively.

microwave  /  catalytic oxidation  /  crystal violet  /  CuO/AC  /  MW irradiation  /  hydroxyl radical (·  /  OH)