Cerium(IV)-mediated electrochemical oxidation process for destruction of organic pollutants in a batch and a continuous flow reactor

mediated electrochemical oxidation (MEO) process with Ce(IV) and nitric acid as the oxidizing me-dium was employed for the destruction of various model organic pollutants in batch and continuous organic feedingmodes. A near complete destruction was observed for all the model organic pollutants studied. The effects of organicconcentration, temperature, concentration of Ce(IV), concentration of nitric acid and feeding time on the organic de-struction efficiency were investigated. Under the experimental conditions of 80oC and 0.95 M Ce(IV) in 3 M nitricacid, nearly 90% destruction was achieved based on CO2 production and 95% based on TOC and COD nearly for allthe organic compounds studied in batch organic addition. In the case of continuous organic addition with in situ electro-regeneration of Ce(IV) by the electrochemical cell a good destruction efficiency was obtained. For long term organicfeeding (120 min) the destruction efficiency was found to be 85% based on CO2 evolution and 98-99% based on TOCand COD analyses. A model was proposed for calculating the CO2 formation constant during the continuous processof organic addition. The model predicted a steady state CO2 evolution pattern for the destruction process during con-onfirmed the predicted trends for the destruction process.The changes in enthalpy, entropy, activation energy and free energy for EDTA degradation were found to be 26.7 kJ/mol, 230 J/(molK), 29.7 kJ/mol, and 118 kJ/mol respectively. KCI Citation Count: 18