Kinetics of biodegradation of carbonaceous organic matter through wet oxidation for environmental effluents released into marine waters

Industrialization and urbanization have twisted marine pollution as a serious problem. Coastal mega cities use ocean for waste disposal resulting in ecological stress on marine environment. Temperature, Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and Dissolved Oxygen (DO) are the most relevant parameters considered in water pollution. The reactions related to the biodegradation, decomposition and ratification of pollutants are expected to be altered due to high chlorides. Researchers had observed that the "k" values for complex decay reaction differ greatly with the diversity of effluents, temperatures and chemical composition of receiving waters. Reaction kinetics is the quantitative study of the reaction mechanism covering rates of chemical reactions and the different factors that affect the reaction rate during conversion of reactants into products. The decay of carbonaceous organic matter measured as BOD is a complex "Redox" reaction, termed as "wet oxidation" with first order kinetics. The activation complex theory for chemical reactions states that an activated complex is formed by the rearrangement of the atoms and bonds of the reactant molecule as an intermediate transient species which breaks into products as and when the reactant molecules possessing the energy of activation, come together and undergo effective collisions. A study on biodegradation of organic substrates commonly discharged into the creeks and near shore marine waters by wet oxidation was undertaken at selected chloride concentrations at two temperatures. The kinetics for decomposition of organic waste was assessed through calculation of the rate constant "k". Effect of temperature on Reaction rate and thermodynamic activation parameters was also evaluated.