Electro-chemical remediation of VOCs contaminated groundwater

摘要

Volatilization loss and adsorption with activated carbon are generally used for the remediation of water contaminated with volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Recently, decomposition treatment by oxidation-reduction has been developed. Electric dechlorination (EDEC) also decomposes and makes VOCs innocuous by oxidation-reduction at the surfaces of electrodes. The authors have studied the fundamental decomposition characteristics of EDEC by batch and column tests using trichloroethylene (TCE) as a VOC. The results show that EDEC decomposes TCE and the reaction is controlled by the quantity of electricity for still water, and by electric current and water velocity for flowing water. We made a composite electrode comprising of conductive porous fillers between electrode parts, and performed column tests. It was thus shown that the decomposition rate increased when using the composite electrode, and this effect was verified by a full size experiment.