Fixed bed catalytic studies for degradation of Imidacloprid using immobilized TiO

2
as
catalyst
Anoop Verma*, Amanjit Singh*, Divya Dixit, Himadri Rajput, Manpreet Kaur
*School of Energy and Environment, Thapar University, Patiala, Punjab.

Abstract
The ever increasing use of pesticides, insecticides in agriculture has lead to the questioning of
the degradation of these chemicals. With lack of traditional methods to degrade them, the
advance oxidation process involving both heterogeneous and homogeneous catalyst have
come in picture. The main implication with these technologies is the commercial viability of
these processes involving the separation and the reuse of the catalyst. These pitfalls can be
covered by designing the immobilized catalyst reactor. In this study imidacloprid [1-(6-
chloro-3-pyridylmethyl)-N-nitroimidazolidin-2-ylidenamine] one widely used insecticides
has being chosen and degradation studies are carried out using immobilized catalyst reactor
with immobilization of catalyst on suitable inert material. The various support systems
analysed were cement, ceramics, plastics for their effectiveness to bind the catalyst. The
baffled reactor was made and subsequent study was carried out to increase the retention time
and optimization of slope keeping the appropriate retention time. The experiment runs were
continuous and solution was recirculated. The degradation study was done using 25ppm
imidacloprid under the sunlight with intensity ranging from 20-40 wb/m
2
measured using the
radiometer . After seven hour 70% degradation was observed. The immobilized catalyst was
recycled for ten recycles and more than 55% degradation was observed. The future course of
action is to make this technology more viable for industrial and large scale applications
Keywords: - Imidacloprid, Immobilized catalyst, advance oxidation process, baffled reactor,
degradation, pesticides