Electrochemical treatment of wastewater containing polyaromatic organic pollutants

Disposal of industrial wastewater containing naphthalene- and anthraquinone-sulphonic acids by electrochemical methods has been studied in this paper. It was found that only a small fraction of the organics was oxidised by direct electrolyses, while complete mineralisation of the organics was obtained with the indirect process, electrogenerating hypochlorite from chloride oxidation. The effects of operating factors, such as anode materials and chloride concentration, were also investigated. The experimental data suggested that the Ti/Pt anodes had the highest electrocatalytic activity and increasing the chloride concentration in the electrolyte resulted in an increasing of COD and colour removal.