Electrochemical redox treatment of denitrification in coastal secondary effluent using Ti/IrO2 anode

In northern coastal industrial park, inlet of the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) had the characteristics of low carbon source and high chloride ion concentration, which resulted in its poor biodegradability. In this case, the experiment explored an electrochemistral method to remove nitrogen. Cathodic potential, Ti/IrO2 was confirmed as the anode and − 1.6 V was taken as the potential in order to remove nitrate-N. The findings include: when the initial chloride ion was 2000 and 3000 mg/L, the effect on the removal difference of nitrogen was slight. When the electrolysis time was 60 min, ammonia-N was removed completely, nitrite-N concentration kept 1 mg/L approximately. The ammonia-N removal efficiency went up with the increasing cathodic potential, and was completely removed in different water samples, but nitrate-N removal showed an opposite result. The production amount of nitrite-N was the least at − 1.6 V. As the pH increased, ammonia-N and nitrate-N’s removal efficiency went up first and then down, the removal effect was the best at pH being 9, Nitrite-N was less influenced by pH. After optimizing the raw water sample, Nitrate-N and TN removal efficiency were significantly increased, but the nitrite-N almost kept constant.