Modeling of a continuous electrochemical tubular reactor for phenol removal

In this study, the treatment of highly polluted synthetic phenolic wastewater in a tubular continuous electrochemical reactor was modeled and solved by the finite difference method. The reaction conditions were previously optimized with batch reactor experiments, and the synthetic wastewater containing 443 mg/L and 3063 mg/L initial phenol concentrations was treated in the runs at 25°C with 120 g/L electrolyte concentration. For the model solution, the column was divided into 10 nodes in z-direction and 9 nodes in r-direction with the intervals j z=3.5 cm, j r=0.5 cm, and j t=10 s and 1.2 min for 443 mg/L and 3063 mg/L phenol feed concentrations, respectively. The results of the model solution correlated with the experimental data fairly well, which could be useful in the design and scale up of tubular continuous electrochemical reactors for phenol removal.

Keywords:

• Electrochemical Oxidation
• Phenol
• Tubular Reactor
• Kinetic Model
• Finite Difference