Estudo da oxidação eletroquímica de ácidos carboxílicos usando eletrodo de diamante dopado com boro e participação de espécies oxidantes

Abstract

In this work, the electrochemical oxidation of three carboxylic acids was studied – formic acid (FA), acetic acid (AA) and oxalic acid (OA) with niobium supported boron doped diamond anode. These acids are usually accumulated during or in the end of various advanced oxidation processes, since they are more persistent compounds than the initial pollutants. BDD anode is considered one of the best electrocatalytic materials for these processes, since that it acts efficiently on the generation of strongly oxidant species, such as hydroxil radicals, hydrogen peroxide and persulfates. Silicon is the most used substrate for the deposition of the diamond layer, but it is a fragile material. Therefore, niobium is shown as a promising alternative due to its chemical and mechanical stability. Synthetic solutions containing the three carboxylic acids were submitted to anodic oxidation experiments aiming to investigate operating parameters such as current density (30, 60, 90 e 120 mA cm-2) and supporting electrolyte (perchloric and sulfuric acids) as well as the effects of the structural differences of the acids. The degradation of the organic compounds was analyzed by means of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total organic carbon (TOC) and HPLC, while the oxidant species were detected using techniques reported on literature. Efficiency parameters (TCE, MCE and energy consumption) were also obtained. Electroanalytical studies shown that both direct and indirect oxidation processes can occur for these acids. The current density was determinant on the removal efficiency, since great COD removals were obtained on higher densities (60.7% for AA; 77.8% for FA and 86.1% for OA by applying 120 mA cm-2). The supporting electrolyte also influenced on the removal efficiency, since the process was more efficient by using H2SO4 as supporting electrolyte due to the participation of persulfates, which led to higher COD removals (34,5% for AA; 82,5% for FA and 93,5% for OA by applying 120 mA cm-2) when compared to HClO4. Finally, the efficiency parameters obtained shown that energy consumption depends only of the applied current density, and not of the acid structures (higher j implies on higher energy consumptions); the total current efficiency, on other hand, is influenced by the organic compound structure.