A Novel Packed-bed Electrocatalysis Reactor (PBECR) for Efficient Degradation of Organic Compounds

Abstract

In this paper, a novel packed-bed electrocatalysis reactor (PBECR) composed of titanium dioxide coated activated carbon (TiO₂/AC) was presented for efficient wastewater treatment. The TiO₂/AC in the PBECR could provide numerous convergent-divergent access tubes for organic compounds (OC) that can eliminate AC plugging to ensure operation permanence in electrochemical oxidation. Further, the employment of TiO₂/AC is beneficial to shorten phenol degradation pathway and decrease poisonous intermediate accumulation. In addition, the PBECR show perfect electrode performance in treating landfill leachate, validating the broad applicability of the proposed process. It was found that the electrode area expansion and short-circuit avoidance by TiO₂ are the main factors in enhancement of OC oxidation kinetics, which are different from mechanisms of those photoprocesses. These observations can be of considerable technological and theoretical values and facilitate to be extended to wide applicable ranges of TiO₂.