Zapping toxic organics
The high reactivity of the electron and its potential for generating highly oxidising species which can break down toxic organics is an area which has been extensively studied by EA Technology.The company has developed a versatile dished electrode membrane (DEM) cell which can tackle liquid organic waste streams of very high toxicity or very dilute streams, where conventional technologies such as precipitation, biological digestion or simply dilution are of limited effectiveness or they involve costly additional processing steps.
Electrode coating and membrane technologies used in the DEM cell allow higher current densities than those applied in traditional parallel plate cells, resulting in greater electrical effect. The reduction in the electrode gap provides uniform flow characteristics with resulting high mass transfer, thus maximising reactivity.
The design of the cell means that the material of construction for the individual components can be chosen for optimum compatibility with the liquids being used. Waste streams already successfully treated using this technology include ammonia, organocyanides, phenols, amines, nitro-compounds and aliphatic chlorocompounds.