The study of reactive dyes degradation in a current cycle reversal system combining cathodic electro-Fenton and anodic oxidation

The integration of conductive substrate and catalytic material effectively avoids the catalyst hard recovery issue in the electrocatalytic degradation field, but the active site reduction and low energy utilization result in lower catalytic efficiency. In this paper, the Cu/FeOx-Y CC electrode with porous structure was developed, which could provide more reaction sites. Moreover, the cyclically commutated double electrode system (CCDES) was groundbreaking designed to maximize the anodic oxidation and cathodic Fenton action with Cu/FeOx-Y CC and carbon cloth (CC) used as electrodes. The self-renewing electrode interface mechanism of CCDES effectively avoids concentration polarization at the electrode surface and sustains catalytic activity. Under the optimized electrocatalytic reaction conditions, the center dot OH and SO4 center dot- are rapidly generated on the electrode surface to achieve broad-spectrum reactive dyes degradation degrade. As a result, the degradation of Reactive Yellow 145 with both monochlortriazine structure and ethylene sulfone structure reaches 100 % at 2.5 h, Reactive Red 24:1 with monochlortriazine structure reaches 100 % at 1 h, and Reactive Blue 19 with ethylene sulfone structure reaches 93.2 % at 3 h. Furthermore, CCDES shows good reusability and stability in harsh environments. This research provides a cost-effective and environmentally benign strategy for treating multicomponent industrial effluents, demonstrating significant potential for scaling electrochemical advanced oxidation processes in practical wastewater remediation applications.