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A novel electro-Fenton method, called the Fered-Fenton method, applying H2O2 and electrogenerated ferrous ions for treating organic-containing wastewater was investigated. By combining electrochemical reduction and chemical oxidation, the process can regenerate ferrous ions and remove organic compounds simultaneously in a batch reactor. Because the generation rate of ferrous ions is one of the key parameters in evaluating the oxidation efficiency of the reaction system, the initial current efficiencies (eta(i)) for iron (III) reduction are examined first. It shows that increasing initial ferric ion concentration can achieve high initial current efficiency. In addition, eta(i) decreased (ca. 20-100%) with increasing current density of cathode (ca. 40-199 A/m2). For illustration, the wastewater from chemical (i.e. electroless) nickel plating was treated in this investigation owing to its non-biodegradability and high organic concentration. The average pH, COD and Ni concentrations of this wastewater were about 5.0, 30,000 and 2,000 mg/L, respectively. Experimental results indicate that traditional Fenton method only removed 60% of COD when using 5,000 mg/L of ferrous ions. However, the COD removal efficiency was promoted after the electricity was introduced into the system (i.e. Fered-Fenton method). Moreover, Ni concentration was reduced from 2,080 to 0.3 mg/L, indicating that the removal efficiency was higher than 99.9%.

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This study applied a novel electrochemical process called the Fered-Fenton method to treat a highly concentrated wastewater. By combining electrochemical reduction and chemical oxidation, the process can remove organic compounds and heavy metals in a batch reactor. A PVC-stabilizer processing wastewater was treated in this investigation owing to its high heavy metal concentration (Pb = 7,500 mg/l) and high organic concentration (COD = 11,000 mg/l). The major organic component was acetate. Direct anodic oxidation showed no effect on COD removal. Fenton's method only removed 36% of COD using 4,000 mg-Fe2+/l and 28,000 mg-H2O2/l dosage. In the Fered-Fenton process, about 89% of COD was removed with 2,000 mg-Fe3+/l and 28,000 mg-H2O2/l. Furthermore, the COD removal attained an efficiency of about 98% for 56,000 mg-H2O2/l used. Results presented herein demonstrate that the Fered-Fenton method is superior to direct anodic oxidation and Fenton's method in this case. Furthermore, the changes of the intermediate compounds including acetate, oxadate, and formate during the reaction were analyzed, which provided us with the information to propose degradation reactions of the wastewater in this system.

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This study investigates the influence of organic shock loading on H2 production in an upflow anaerobic sludge bed (UASB) reactor. An esterification wastewater produced from a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) manufacturing plant was applied; the major organic pollutants are ethylene glycol and acetaldehyde. Experiments of two influent modes were performed here: a continuous-flow mode with a step input of shock loading and a batch mode with a pulse input of shock loading. Results of the continuous-flow experiments indicate that biogas production parameters such as H2 concentration and biogas production rate are more sensitive than water quality parameters such as pH, ORP, COD and TOC. In particular, H2, increasing by 140% within 1 hour, is a very important index upon the organic shock loading. It changes from 120 ppm to over 600 ppm as the organic loading rate increases from 4.4 to 13.2 kgCOD/m3·day through 4 hours of shock loading. Experiments of the batch shock loading with different pulse dosagesof ethylene glycol, acetaldehyde and the raw wastewater were also investigated. The amount of H2 production increased in proportion to an increase of organic load. Furthermore, the sequence of H2 production among the three types of shock loading is acetaldehyde> ethylene glycol> raw wastewater. To sum up, H2 shows a faster response rate than the other parameters. Therefore, H2 can be adopted as an important parameter for organic shock loading in UASB.

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