An experimental investigation and modelling of fluid flow in solar photocatalytic reactor for contaminated water treatment

Different types of solar photocatalytic reactors exists in the literature for water treatment, Thin-film fixed-bed reactor (TFFBR) is one of them which is used in this study because of its high surface area to volume ratio for water treatment. TFFBR is an inclined plate coated with P25 TiO2 DEGUSSA over which contaminated water flows during treatment. The TFFBR also contains a pump, by which the water flow rate can be controlled. The main advantages of this TFFBR are its high efficiency, simple construction and low investment costs. Modelling of the fluid flow is important and crucial for the efficient design of the device. A computational model of fluid flow in TFFBR to treat aquaculture pond water contaminated with an aquaculture organism A. hydrophila ATCC 35654 is presented in this paper. A pilot-scale thin-film-fixed-bed solar photocatalytic reactor is used for experimental measurement of disinfection of A. hydrophila ATCC 35654 as a function of flow rates and solar intensity. Modelling and simulation is done in MATLAB software for both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Computational results are discussed, compared and verified against experimentally measured results. Furthermore, a fluid flow model of microbial disinfection against the cumulative energy of each flow rate is presented, discussed and recommended. Clearly, this study attempted to develop a fluid flow model and to optimize a pilot-scale TFFBR for the effective use of solar energy to treat water contaminated with pathogenic microbes.