# A New Route for Low Pressure and Temperature
## 3 Results
### Catalyst Performance
Figure 9: (**a**) Results of CWAO phenol oxidation with HCL resin and HCL nanocomposites. Reaction condition: temperature, 95 \({}^{\circ}\)C; pressure, 0.3 MPa; air gas flow, 4.6 NL/h; concentration of solid, C\({}_{\text{Solid}}\) = 0.4 g/L; phenol concentration, 4000 mg/L. (**b**) Results of CWAO phenol oxidation with PtRu, MoS\({}_{2}\) and PtRu/MoS\({}_{2}\) after 180 min. Reaction condition: temperature, 95 \({}^{\circ}\)C; pressure, 0.3 MPa; air gas flow, 4.6 NL/h; concentration of catalyst, C\({}_{\text{cat}}\) = 0.02 g/L; phenol concentration, 4000 mg/L. Before starting the tests, catalyst loaded and unloaded resins were saturated with phenol in the absence of the airflow at 95 \({}^{\circ}\)C (i.e., 4000 mg/L was the starting phenol concentration for the tests collected in this graph). the neat resin. This result was further analyzed by GC-MS, which shows a single peak, at 19.95 min retention time, attributable to phenol. In this case, the result of the experiments is not directly comparable with that obtained at higher concentration, because we cannot exclude desorption (the catalytic resin has been saturated with 4000 mg/L of phenol solution, before test in the presence of 1000 mg/L of phenol). The UV-vis spectra of reaction mixtures at two different reaction times in the presence of the catalyst loaded resin are shown in Figure 12b. The absence of the typical phenol absorption bands suggests the depletion of phenol. In particular, the spectrum at 30 min already suggests the formation of low carboxylic acids (i.e., acetic acid) [21]. The results of the GC-MS, performed on the reaction solution, confirms the UV-vis evaluation (Figure 11), evidencing for example at 300 min of reaction a presence of non-reacted phenol (19.95 min retention time) which accounts for 3% of the total detected species, while acetic acid (retention time 14.17 min) was the other detected molecule, with a phenol removal of 99.9%. In these conditions, TOC conversion (\(\Delta\)TOC) results equal to 97.1%, corresponding to a mineralization degree of about 96.8%. The results are very relevant, also if compared with the literature [20; 21; 26; 28; 29; 35; 36; 39; 44; 45], considering the pressure and temperature conditions and the low amount of noble metals used in our tests. This is due to a combination of factors: (i) the adsorption ability of the resin towards organic chemicals (e.g., phenol), and probably oxygen, which results in a sort of reagents pre-concentration enabling reaction rate increase; (iv) the PtRu alloy activity; (v) the MoS\({}_{2}\) nanosheets which are characterized by a high level of defects, that protects physically the catalyst surface against carbon polymerization and more, in general, chemically against poisoning (e.g., sulfur,..); and finally (vi) the defects in MoS\({}_{2}\), including S vacancy (monosulfur and disulfur vacancies), and external Mo atom, which break the surface chemical inertness, enabling gases adsorption, e.g., oxygen reservoir [71]. Moreover, the active species was not supported on the resin surface but homogeneously dispersed into the polymeric matrix, preserving resin hierarchical porous construction (i.e., the combination of micropores and mesopores) and providing easy access channels for reaction medium. The NPs result confined in the hyper-crosslinked matrix, which preserves nano-dimensions, reduces leaching phenomena and the amount of active species required because of the total surface area exposed. Figure 11: Results of CWAO phenol oxidation with HCL resin and HCL nanocomposite. Reaction condition: temperature, 95 \({}^{\circ}\)C; pressure, 0.3 MPa; air gas flow, 4.6 NL/h; concentration of solid, C\({}_{\text{Solid}}\) = 0.4 g/L; phenol concentration, 1000 mg/L. Before starting the tests, catalyst loaded and unloaded resins were saturated with phenol in the absence of the airflow at 95 \({}^{\circ}\)C (i.e., 1000 mg/L was the starting phenol concentration for the tests collected in this graph).