Current Efficiency and Energy Consumption of Electrochemical Oxidation for Ammonia Removal from Coking Wastewater Using Boron-Doped Diamond Electrodes

Abstract

The electrochemical treatment of ammonia using born-doped diamond (BDD) as advanced treatment of coking wastewater was investigated. The effects of chloride ion concentration and current density on current efficiency and energy consumption were also analyzed. The results show that the current efficiency increases with chloride ion concentration increase and current density decrease. And 30% of current efficiency is obtained when current density is less than 19.7mA cm-2, and it decreases above 19.7mA cm-2. The energy consumption decreases with the chloride ion concentration increase and current density decrease. And energy consumption of 0.50kWh g-1 and ammonia removal rate of 84.7% can be achieved at initial ammonia concentration of 100mg L-1, chloride concentration of 900mg L-1 and current density of 29.6mA cm-2.Therefore, BDD electrodes have high current efficiency and low energy consumption, which attributed to its high oxygen evolution overvoltage (2.6V vs. SCE) and low chloride evolution overvoltage (1.5V vs. SCE).