Combustion of Volatile Organic Compounds in a Domestic Microwave Oven Using Regenerable Sorbent-Catalyst Combinations

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) traps that could easily be regenerated while simultaneously destroying the desorbed VOCs would represent a major breakthrough. A domestic microwave (MW) oven was used here at a power of 800 W to regenerate sorbents loaded with toluene, n-decane or formaldehyde and then combust the released VOCs on a MW-absorbing catalyst. Porous polymer Tenax and various zeolites were tested as sorbents and base metal oxides were employed as combustion catalysts. The locations of the sorbent and catalyst beds were chosen to allow for a strong MW absorption by the catalysts, some of which glowed red within 3 s after turning on the MW, allowing essentially full combustion (above 98 % conversion) of the VOCs to CO2 and H2O. Water (0.6 vol%) neither affected the sorption of toluene and n-decane in Tenax and that of formaldehyde in silicalite-1 nor the combustion of these VOCS over a La-Ce-Mn-O catalyst.