Sonoelectrochemical treatment of water polluted with trichloroacetic acid: From sonovoltammetry to pre-pilot plant scale

• Published in: Ultrasonics sonochemistry Vol. 17; no. 6; pp. 1010 - 1020
• Main Authors: Esclapez, M.D., Sáez, V., Milán-Yáñez, D., Tudela, I., Louisnard, O., González-García, J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01.08.2010; Elsevier
• Subjects: Cavitation; Current distribution; Electrocatalysis; Electrochemistry; Engineering Sciences; Feasibility Studies; Fluid flow; Green Chemistry Technology; Pilot Projects; Sonication - economics; Sonication - methods; Trichloroacetic Acid - chemistry; Trichloroacetic Acid - isolation & purification; Ultrasound; Water - chemistry; Water Pollutants, Chemical - chemistry; Water Pollutants, Chemical - isolation & purification; Water Purification - economics; Water Purification - methods; DCAA; j w; PP; DE; ρ; D; E; F; E a; Fluid flow; I; UV-VIS; ω; I a; S-CV; Electrocatalysis; MCAA; S-LSV; S; d e-h; V; IC; THMs; Ultrasound; EC; HPLC; sono-LSV; П; CE; TCAA; R-CV; R-LSV; Cavitation; c l; LSV; E cw; p; α; CV; sono-CV; t; X-MBE; Electrochemistry; Current distribution; FC
• ISSN: 1350-4177; 1873-2828
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2009.11.009

The sonoelectrochemical treatment of aqueous solutions of trichloroacetic acid (TCAA) has been scaled-up from the voltammetric analysis to pre-pilot stage. The degradation in absence of ultrasound field has yield to a poor performance which has been improved in presence of ultrasound. The sonovoltametry study has provided the range of potentials and/or current densities to be used with the lowest current efficiency penalty. Sonoelectrolyses at batch scale (carried out with a horn-transducer 24 kHz positioned at about 3 cm from the surface of the electrode) achieved little improvement in the degradation. However, when a specifically designed sonoelectrochemical reactor (not optimized) was used during the scale-up, the presence of ultrasound field provided better results (fractional conversion 97%, degradation efficiency 26%, selectivity 0.92 and current efficiency 8%) at lower ultrasonic intensities and volumetric flow.