Electrochemical oxidation of phenol in a PtRu/NbC membrane-based catalytic nanoreactor

Electrochemical oxidation has attracted growing attention to treat organic in wastewater. However, achieving a high reactor efficiency and harmless treatment of the toxic organics is still a significant challenge. In this work, the bimetal Pt and Ru were firstly co-electrodeposited on the surface of nanoporous niobium carbide (NbC) membranes (similar to 8.3 nm pore size) applying for anode in flow-through reactor for phenol electrochemical oxidation. In a continuous flow-through reactor, the single-pass removals of phenol and chemical oxygen demand (COD) were 99.7 % and 74.2 %, respectively, with a short hydraulic retention time of 342 s, demonstrating rapid phenol degradation that is an order of magnitude shorter than those reported in other studies. This excellent reactor efficiency was ascribed to a large interfacial reaction area providing by the pollutant phase-catalytic membrane-green product phase. We compared the mass transfer of flow-through and flow-by reactor testifying the high efficiency of flow-through reactor. The excellent stability of PtRu/NbC anode enable this reactor to operate 50 h stably. Moreover, the presence of low or non-toxic (catechol and acetic acid) as the residues of phenol degradation resulting from the contribution of synergistic reaction between direct and indirect oxidation process.

Automated summary

Electrochemical oxidation of phenol was achieved using a flow-through reactor with bimetal PtRu/NbC as the anode. The reactor demonstrated excellent efficiency with rapid phenol degradation and low or non-toxic residue production. The stability of the PtRu/NbC anode enabled the continuous operation of the reactor for 50 hours.