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Updated: Jul 11, 2026

Heterogeneous Removal of Water-Soluble Ruthenium Olefin Metathesis Catalyst from Aqueous Media Via Host-Guest Interaction
Published on: August 23, 2018
Thermal desorption of polychlorobiphenyls from contaminated soils and their hydrodechlorination using Pd- and
M Aresta1, A Dibenedetto, C Fragale
1CIRCC, METEA Research Center, Department of Chemistry, University of Bari, Via Celso Ulpiani 27, 70126 Bari, Italy.
Abstract:
This paper reports about a combined technology for soil remediation from PCBs using the thermal desorption technique coupled with the catalytic hydrogenation of recovered PCBs. The reactor is a bench scale rotating desorption furnace through which nitrogen is flushed and used as carrier gas of desorbed PCBs. The latter are condensed into an hexane or hexane-acetone (1:1 v/v) solution that is then hydrogenated using phosphate-supported Pd or Rh as catalyst. The analysis of the treated soil, under variable operative conditions (temperature and desorption time), shows that the total (99.8%) decontamination from PCBs occurs. The recovery yield of the desorbed PCBs is better than 75% and the subsequent hydrogenation reaches 63% of the collected PCBs in 5h or 100% in 12h.
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