Electro-Oxidation in Combination with Biological Processes for Removal of Persistent Pollutants in Wastewater: A Review

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and emerging pollutants (EP) are characterized by their difficulty to be removed through biological oxidation processes (BOPs); they persist in the environment and could have adverse effects on the aquatic ecosystem and human health. The electro-oxidation (EO) process has been successfully used as an alternative technique to oxidize many kinds of the aforementioned pollutants in wastewater. However, the EO process has been criticized for its high energy consumption cost and its potential generation of by-products. In order to decrease these drawbacks, its combination with biological oxidation processes has been reported as a solution to reduce costs and to reach high rates of recalcitrant pollutants removal from wastewaters. Thus, the location of EO in the treatment line is an important decision to make, since this decision affects the formation of by-products and biodegradability enhancement. This paper reviews the advantages and disadvantages of EO as a pre and post-treatment in combination with BOPs. A perspective of the EO scaleup is also presented, where hydrodynamics and the relationship of A/V (area of the electrode/working volume of the electrochemical cell) experiments are examined and discussed.