Palladium-facilitated electrolytic dechlorination of 2-chlorobiphenyl using a granular-graphite electrode Original Research Article

Palladium-assisted electrocatalytic dechlorination of 2-chlorobiphenyl (2-Cl BP) in aqueous solutions was conducted in a membrane-separated electrochemical reactor with granular-graphite packed electrodes. The dechlorination took place at a granular-graphite cathode while Pd was electro-deposited from the K2PdCl6 in the solution and at a Pd-deposited granular-graphite electrode. Using the Pd-deposited graphite cathode in the membrane reactor for a sequence of experiments, each was conducted under a lower current than in the previous one, and the rate of dechlorination became slower in each consecutive experiment. At the end of this sequence, a duplicate experiment showed a loss of activity of the Pd-deposited granular-graphite cathode. In the experiments of dechlorination while Pd was deposited at the granular-graphite electrode, the rate of dechlorination increased with increases of the initial K2PdCl6 concentration and of the applied cathode potential. In each experiment, the dechlorination of 2-Cl BP was relatively fast at the beginning, as demonstrated in an experiment in which 66.4% of 2-Cl BP was dechlorinated within 4 h, but the rate of dechlorination decreased over the time. This decrease can be described with two stages of exponential decrease. The values of the rate constant in the first stage varies with the applied potential and the initial K2PdCl6 concentration, but the values of the rate constant in the second stage do not show any dependence on the potential and the K2PdCl6 concentration. The current efficiency of dechlorination was improved by applying part-time current to the electrodes.