Why Traditional Carbon Anode is Not a Good Choice for Electrochemical Wastewater Treatment

Why Traditional Carbon Anode is Not a Good Choice for Electrochemical Wastewater Treatment?

Traditional carbon based anodes, such as graphite and glassy carbon, have the advantages of being a low-cost anode material. They can also be made with a large surface area, in the form of reticulated carbon or a packed bed.

Their use is limited because carbon based anodes are known to be consumed during the electrolysis, which adds to the increase in the inter-electrode gap with a subsequent increase in solution resistance and a waste of energy. In addition, graphite anodes have a low oxygen evolution potential of about 1.7V. This means the traditional carbon based materials have poorer performance due to the ease of producing oxygen gas as a parasitic reaction to organic oxidation.

Scientist studied the degradation of phenol using glassy carbon electrodes. The glassy carbon material could degrade phenol, but the rate was very slow and slower than the degradation of its subsequent intermediates. The voltage had to be limited below 1.7V due to the corrosion attack on the anode.