A study on electrochemical oxidationof phenol for wastewater remediation

Abstract This era having been driven by the industrial revolution caused a major outbreak of pollutant quantity in water. Phenol is one of the most toxic chemicals and electrochemical oxidation is undoubtedly one of the attractive alternatives for the degradation of phenol available in wastewater. The present study aims at finding the best combination of operating parameters maximizing the phenol removal by electrochemical treatment of phenolic wastewater. Synthetically prepared phenol solution of various concentrations was electrochemically oxidized using a cylindrical flow cell. It was found that initial phenol concentration, time, current density, and salt concentration have a strong influence on the removal of phenol. Furthermore, based on the results obtained, a second-order regression model was proposed to predict the responses. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) result and the R 2 value of the model shows that the model could very well predict the realistic situation. According to the prediction by the model, the best set of operating conditions giving the complete removal of phenol is Time: 9.27 min, Current density: 3.58 A/dm 2 , supporting Electrolyte concentration: 3.29 g/L, and Initial Concentration: 13.64 ppm.