Degradation of Synthetic Dyeing Wastewater by Underwater Electrical Discharge Processes

Electrical discharge treatments of synthetic dyeing wastewater were carried out with two different systems： underwater pulsed electrical discharge （UPED） and underwater dielectric barrier discharge （UDBD）. Reactive Blue 4 （RB4） and Acid Red 4 （AR4） were used as model contaminants for the synthetic wastewater. The performance of the aforementioned systems was compared with respect to the chromaticity removal and the energy requirement. The results showed that the present electrical discharge systems were very effective for degradation of the dyes. The dependences of the dye degradation rate on treatment time, initial dye concentration, electrical energy, and the type of working gas including air, 02, and N2 were examined. The change in the initial dye concentration did not largely affect the degradation of either RB4 or AR4. The energy delivered to the UPED system was only partially utilized for generating reactive species capable of degrading the dyes, leading to higher energy requirement than the UDBD system. Among the working gases, the best performance was observed with O2. As the degradation proceeded, the concentration of total dissolved solids and the solution conductivity kept increasing while pH showed a decreasing trend, revealing that the dyes were effectively mineralized.

Oxidation of S(Ⅳ)in Seawater by Pulsed High Voltage Discharge Plasma with TiO_2/Ti Electrode as Catalyst~

Oxidation of S（IV） to S（VI） in the effluent of a flue gas desulfurization（FGD） sys- tem is very critical for industrial applications of seawater FGD. This paper reports a pulsed corona discharge oxidation process combined with a TiO2 photocatalyst to convert S（IV） to S（VI） in artificial seawater. Experimental results show that the oxidation of S（IV） in artificial seawater is enhanced in the pulsed discharge plasma process through the application of TiO2 coating electrodes. The oxidation rate of S（IV） using Ti metal as a ground electrode is about 2.0x10-4 mol. L 1. min-1, the oxidation rate using TiO2/Ti electrode prepared by annealing at 500 ~C in air is 4.5x 10-4 tool. L-a ~ min-1, an increase with a factor 2.25. The annealing temper- ature for preparing TiO2/Ti electrode has a strong effect on the oxidation of S（IV） in artificial seawater. The results of in-situ emission spectroscopic analysis show that chemically active species （i.e. hydroxyl radicals and oxygen radicals） are produced in the pulsed discharge plasma process. Compared with the traditional air oxidation process and the sole plasma-induced oxidation process, the combined application of TiO2 photocatalysts and a pulsed high-voltage electrical discharge process is useful in enhancing the energy and conversion efficiency of S（IV） for the seawater FGD system.