Modeling of electrooxidation of phenolic wastewater

Among the various wastes, phenolic compounds constitute a family of pollutants particularly toxic to the aquatic fauna and flora. Phenol belongs to the recalcitrant pollutants to conventional physicochemical and biological treatments. On the other hand, the advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) have been defined as effective processes for treatment of wastewater containing toxic and persistent organic pollutants. In this work, a model is proposed for describing the electrochemical oxidation of phenol for a batch system. The proposed model predicts the variation of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and current efficiency as a function of time, under different rate control regimes (diffusive, kinetic and mixed). Model parameters are: current density, initial phenol concentration and electrode area. Effect different parameters on phenol oxidation performance have been studied by sensitivity analysis. The sensitivity analysis has shown that current density in diffusive control regime and initial concentration in kinetic control regime, have been the most sensitive model parameters. In the mathematical model validation, the model results are compared with experimental results published in the literature.