Destruction of commercial pesticides by cerium redox couple mediated electrochemical oxidation process in continuous feed mode.

Mediated electrochemical oxidation was carried out for the destruction of commercial pesticide formulations using cerium(IV) in nitric acid as the mediator electrolyte solution in a bench scale set up. The mediator oxidant was regenerated in situ using an electrochemical cell. The real application of this sustainable process for toxic organic pollutant destruction lies in its ability for long term continuous operation with continuous organic feeding and oxidant regeneration with feed water removal. In this report we present the results of fully integrated MEO system. The task of operating the continuous feed MEO system for a long time was made possible by continuously removing the feed water using an evaporator set up. The rate of Ce(IV) regeneration in the electrochemical cell and the consumption for the pesticide destruction was matched based on carbon content of the pesticides. It was found that under the optimized experimental conditions for Ce(III) oxidation, organic addition and water removal destruction efficiency of ca. 99% was obtained for all pesticides studied. It was observed that the Ce(IV) concentration was maintained nearly the same throughout the experiment. The stable operation for 6h proved that the process can be used for real applications and for possible scale up for the destruction of larger volumes of toxic organic wastes.