Application of electrochemical oxidation as alternative treatment of produced water generated by Brazilian petrochemical industry

This paper presents the anodic oxidation of real produced water, generated by petroleum exploration of the Petrobras plant-Brazil, using platinum supported on Ti (Ti/Pt) and boron-doped diamond (BDD) anodes in an electrolytic batch cell. The influence of several operating parameters such as current, supporting electrolyte, agitation rate and temperature on the performance has been studied and the energy consumption has been also evaluated. Galvanostatic electrolysis at BDD leads to complete COD removal (98%) due to the high amounts of effective hydroxyl radicals and peroxodisulfates generated from water oxidation and the COD removal rate increases with rising applied current (from 15 to 60 mA cm− 2). Conversely, at Pt electrode, about 50% of COD removals were achieved by applying 15 and 30 mA cm− 2 of current density, and 80% of COD removal at 60 mA cm− 2. Although, the energy consumption and process time make useless anodic oxidation for complete treatment of petrochemical wastewaters; maybe, it can be a feasible process as a pre-treatment process reducing significantly the cost and time of treatment.