Detoxification of synthetic industrial wastewaters using electrochemical oxidation with boron‐doped diamond anodes

Abstract

The electrochemical oxidation on boron-doped diamond (BDD) anodes of synthetic industrial wastewaters polluted with different aromatic compounds has been studied. This technology reduces significantly the organic load and the toxicity of treated aqueous wastes. The shape of the toxicity vs time curve depends strongly on the nature of the phenolic compounds, and especially on the substituent groups contained in the phenol molecule. For the oxidation of hydroxybenzenes a complex shape is obtained, with a plateau zone in the first stages of the electrolyses. This plateau zone is transformed into a maximum in the electrolyses of chlorophenols. In the case of nitrophenols, the toxicity index decreases at the same time as the chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration, although the decrease in the toxicity is less significant than the decrease in the COD. All these toxicity profiles can be justified in terms of the nature of the intermediates generated during the electrolyses, but they cannot be directly related to the COD variation, which shows an exponential decrease.

Electrochemical treatment of the effluent of a fine chemical manufacturing plant

“…Compared with other electrode materials, conductive-diamond has shown a higher stability and efficiency. During the recent years, conductive-diamond electrochemical oxidation (CDEO) has been widely studied with synthetic industrial wastes in lab and bench-scale plants [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17], but unfortunately only few papers have focused the electrochemical treatment of actual aqueous wastes [18]. The main conclusion of these studies is that this technology allows obtaining the almost complete mineralization of the organics contained in the wastes with very high current efficiencies.…”

Electrochemical treatment of simulated ground water containing MTBE and BTEX with BDD anodes

“…Electrochemical treatment with BDD anodes has been effective in the removal of toxic and biorefractory organic compounds19–22 as well as for disinfection and purification of natural waters 23, 24…”

Persistent aromatic pollutants removal using a combined process of electrochemical treatment and reverse osmosis/nanofiltration

“…Phenol is one of the most representative compounds of industrial fluid streams, and has been used previously as a model pollutant in other electrochemical studies [22][23][24][25][26]. Azo is the most common type of dyes used in the textile industry [7][8][9][27][28][29][30][31], and its degradation using BDD anodes was also previously studied [28].…”