Title
Photoelectrocatalytic degradation of 2,4-dichlorophenol in a TiO<inf>2</inf> nanotube-coated disc flow reactor
Date Issued
01 April 2021
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Publisher(s)
Elsevier Ltd
Abstract
Photoelectrocatalytic (PEC) water treatment is a promising technology for organic pollution abatement. Much of the prior research focused on material discovery and optimization. However, challenges exist in scaling-up PEC processes and are associated with designing reactors with effective light irradiation on electrode surfaces and, simultaneously, efficient electrode configurations. We design and demonstrate key reactor design principles, which influence reaction mechanisms, for a reactor using a TiO2 nanotube-coated disc flow reactor. Degradation of organochlorinated 2,4-dichlorophenol was studied as representative carcinogenic micropollutant. The synergistic photoelectrocatalytic process showed 5-fold faster degradation kinetics than solely electrocatalytic treatment or a greater than 2-fold enhancement over photocatalysis alone. Applicability of photoelectrocatalytic treatment was demonstrated over a wide range of micropollutant concentrations with almost complete abatement even at concentrations up to 25 mg L−1 of 2,4-dichlorophenol. Mechanistically, the increase in applied current density efficiency for degradation of 2,4-dichlorophenol was due to stabilization of charge carriers and higher oxidants production rates in the PEC system. Carboxylic acids were identified as the main by-products formed from cleavage of the phenolic ring moieties in 2,4-dichlorophenol. However, very importantly we achieved dehalogenation photoelectrocatalysis with evidence of chlorine heteroatoms released as innocuous chloride anions. Overall, this research demonstrates the importance of PEC reactor design and how properly orientated TiO2 nanotube-coated disc flow reactors leverage both novel material designs and reactor architectures to achieve pollutant degradation.
Volume
268
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Electroquímica
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85098198533
PubMed ID
Source
Chemosphere
ISSN of the container
00456535
Sponsor(s)
This work was partially funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment Nanosystems Engineering Research Center under project EEC-1449500 and the Research Institute of the Universidad de Lima and FONDECYT -Perú under project 105-2015 .
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus