ABSTRACT
In different industrial activities existing today there is the problem of waste generated and its management. Liquid wastes are a major source of water resources pollution, being necessary the control of the disposal conditions. Some parameters are regulated by legislation, in national and in state level, however, even meeting the requirements of legislation, this water is disposed of with low concentrations of pollutants. Some aromatic organic pollutants present problems of toxicity and bioaccumulation even at low concentrations. In general they are a problem for biological treatment due to their toxicity, since they are detrimental to the microorganisms debuggers of organic matter and their low degradability make them pass through the biological treatment without decaying.
For effluents containing organic pollutants an alternative treatment, that has been widely investigated, is the use of Advanced Oxidation Processes – AOP’s. These processes are aimed at the degradation of organic compounds, including refractory, in a short period of time and with high efficiency.
This work investigates the application of electrolysis - EL and photoelectrooxidation – PEO in the degradation of refractory aromatic organic pollutants in synthetic solutions, in order to better understand the phenomena involved in the process of effluent treatment, as well as their technical feasibility of implementation. Another point studied is the use of of scan cyclic voltammetry technique as a tool for evaluating the electrochemical behavior of anode material and the definition of working parameters for the oxidation processes investigated.
Both oxidation processes investigated have proved to be capable of degrading refractory organic compound, and in the PEO process greater efficiency of phenol degradation was achieved, producing compounds far less damaging to the environment, such as organic acids. Both processes, electrolysis and photoelectrooxidation, represent a technological alternative for the degradation of these hazardous compounds.