Self-powered electrochemical system by combining Fenton reaction and active chlorine generation for organic contaminant treatment

Abstract

Environmental deterioration, especially water pollution, is widely dispersed and could affect the quality of people’s life at large. Though the sewage treatment plants are constructed to meet the demands of cities, distributed treatment units are still in request for the supplementary of centralized purification beyond the range of plants. Electrochemical degradation can reduce organic pollution to some degree, but it has to be powered. Triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is a newly-invented technology for low-frequency mechanical energy harvesting. Here, by integrating a rotary TENG (R-TENG) as electric power source with an electrochemical cell containing a modified graphite felt cathode for hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) along with hydroxyl radical (•OH) generation by Fenton reaction and a platinum sheet anode for active chlorine generation, a self-powered electrochemical system (SPECS) was constructed. Under the driven of mechanical energy or wind flow, such SPECS can efficiently degrade dyes after power management in neutral condition without any O2 aeration. This work not only provides a guideline for optimizing self-powered electrochemical reaction, but also displays a strategy based on the conversion from distributed mechanical energy to chemical energy for environmental remediation.