Degradation and Toxicity Assay During Electrocatalysis of Chlorobenzene in Aqueous Solution

The degradation and toxicity assay on a three-dimensional electrocatalytic oxidation (ECO) of organic pollutants were described in this paper. Aqueous chlorobenzene (CB, 50 mg/L) was chosen as model pollutant and C. vulgaris was applied to assess the toxicity evolution during electrocatalytic oxidation for this study. The degradation and mineralization rate of CB, and the toxicity of wastewater sample during the electro-oxidation were determined meantime under suitable experimental conditions. The experimental results indicated that CB, oxidized incompletely to CO2 and H2O, was removed prior to total organic carbon (TOC), and the bio-toxicity was relevant to the intermediate products of CB degradation. The major intermediate products included phenol, biphenyl, 1,4-benzoquinone and other small molecular organic acids, unequivocally identified by GC/MS and IC. It was essential to maintain enough mineralization for toxicity reduction during electro-oxidation of organics in water.