Degradation of Rhodamine B by an electrochemical ozone generating system consist of a Ti anode coated with nanocomposite of Sn–Sb–Ni oxide

Abstract

An ozonation process was performed using a recycled electrochemical ozone generator system. A titanium based electrode, coated with nanocomposite of Sn–Sb–Ni was applied as anode in a laboratory-made electrochemical reactor. A constant flow rate of 192mg/h of generated ozone was entered to an ozonation reactor to contact with a typical target pollutant, i.e., Rhodamine B (Rh.B) molecules in aqueous solution. Four operational parameters such as: initial dye concentration, pH, temperature and the contact time were evaluated for the ozonation process. Experimental findings revealed that for a solution of 8mg/L of the dye, the degradation efficiency could reach to 99.5% after 30min at pH 3.7 and temperature of 45°C as the optimum conditions. Kinetic studies showed that a second order equation can describe the ozonation adequately well under different temperatures. Also, considering to the importance of process simulation, a three-layered feed forward back propagation artificial neural network model was developed. Sensitivity analysis indicated order of the operational parameter's relative importance on the model output as: time≫pH>Rh.B initial concentration>temperature.