Methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) is one of the most used fuel oxygenates.
Oxygenates improve combustion, thereby reducing CO and hydrocarbon emissio
ns in motor vehicle exhaust. MTBE is highly soluble in water and poorly sor
bed to carbon based substrates such as soil. An important property of MTBE
is its poor biodegradability. The treatment of contaminated groundwater and
wastewater by means of conventional biological, chemical and physical tech
niques turned out to be inefficient. As a matter of principle the degradati
on of organic compounds by ultrasound in water (aquasonolysis) is practicab
le as an advanced technology for remediation of waters contaminated with MT
BE. The degradation reactions mainly occur in the cavitation bubbles as pyr
olytical processes. Under the test conditions, the frequency range between
300 and 800 kHz leads to acceptable degradation values at a power density o
f 5 W/cm(2). The degradation was not suppressed by radical scavenger (n-but
anol). With concentrations above 25 mg/L MTBE in water, significantly influ
ence of concentration on degradation could be observed.