Desalination 274 (2011) 39–43

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Desalination
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / d e s a l

Development of an electrochemical cell for the removal of Reactive Black 5

Maria Rivera, Marta Pazos, Maria Ángeles Sanromán ⁎
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Vigo, Isaac Newton Building, Campus As Lagoas, Marcosende 36310, Vigo, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The decolourisation of an azo dye, Reactive Black 5 (RB5), by an electrochemical technology was studied in
Received 13 September 2010 both cubic and cylindrical cell configurations, each with a working volume of 0.4 L and graphite electrodes.
Received in revised form 31 December 2010 Low decolourisation was detected in the treatment of pure solutions of RB5, but a significant extent of
Accepted 25 January 2011
decolourisation was observed in the presence of Na2SO4. The extent of decolourisation was largely dependent
Available online 21 February 2011
on the cell configuration, and the best results were obtained when the cylindrical cell was employed. Nearly
Keywords:
complete decolourisation was achieved in 3 h for an effluent containing 70 mg L− 1 RB5 and 0.1 M Na2SO4, and
Decolourisation the TOC removal was approximately 95%. In the presence of the non-inert electrolyte NaCl, complete
Dye decolourisation was detected. However, due to the chloro-organic compounds formed in the electrochemical
Electrochemical oxidation with NaCl, the TOC removal in the most optimal conditions was approximately 93%.
Phenanthrene Furthermore, the efficiency of the cell configuration designs for the remediation of other organic compounds
Reactive Black 5 such as phenanthrene, a typical polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), has been demonstrated.
© 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction been great interest in electrochemical methods to decolourise and

degrade dye molecules [7]. The electric current induces redox
Synthetic dyes are used to colour many different products such as reactions resulting in the transformation and destruction of the
textiles, paper, cosmetics and drugs [1]. This process generates large organic compounds and almost complete oxidation to CO2 and H2O.
volumes of wastewater. In the textile industry, 200 to 500 L of water is The oxidation of pollutants in an electrolytic cell can occur through
needed to produce 1 kg of finished products [2]. Specifically, the the following processes:
dyeing of 1 kg of cotton with reactive dyes demands from 70 to 150 L
– Anodic oxidation: This refers to processes in which an electron
of water, 0.6–0.8 kg NaCl and from 30 to 60 g of dyestuffs. More than
transfer reaction of the desired pollutant occurs at the surface of
80,000 tons of reactive dyes are produced and consumed each year,
the anode [8,9]. The electrode reactions involving the degrada-
making it possible to quantify the total amount of pollution caused by
tion of organic compounds are given by Eqs. 1 and 2. The
their use [3].
potential required for the oxidation of organic compounds is
Synthetic azo dyes are extensively used in the textile and dyestuff
usually high and collateral reactions such as water electrolysis
industries and are considered recalcitrant xenobiotic compounds, due
are inevitable.
to the presence of a N=N bond and groups such as aromatic rings that
are not easily degraded. The discharge of these coloured compounds þ
M + H2 O→M ðHO⋅Þ + H + e
−
ð1Þ
into the environment causes considerable non-aesthetic pollution and
serious health risks [4]. Common chemical and physical methods used þ −
MðHO⋅Þ + R→M + CO2 + H2 O + H + e ð2Þ
for water purification are not sufficiently effective, and the application
of chemical agents for compound decomposition could lead to where: M is the electrode and R is the organic compound.
additional environmental pollution [5].
Several techniques have been employed for the removal of dyes
from wastewaters. Due to the low biodegradability of dyes, conven- – Cathodic reduction: Electroreduction of textile wastewater with
tional biological treatment processes are not very effective. Conse- azo dyes was also reported [10,11]. The reductive cleavage of the
quently, dye-containing wastewaters are usually treated by physical azo chromogene leads to a decrease in the specific absorbance of
or chemical processes [6]. Environmental pressures may require novel the dye without the addition of chemicals or formation of sludge.
strategies for technology developments. In recent years, there has

– Indirect oxidation: This process relies on the electrolytic genera-

⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: + 34 986 812383; fax: + 34 986 812380. tion of strong oxidising agents. The action of these oxidising
E-mail address: [email protected] (M.Á. Sanromán). species leads to total or partial decontamination, respectively [4].

0011-9164/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.desal.2011.01.074
40 M. Rivera et al. / Desalination 274 (2011) 39–43

When NaCl is used, the electrode reactions to indirect degradation

of organic compound proceeds as follows:
− −
2Cl →Cl2 + 2e ð3Þ

þ −
Cl2 + H2 O→H + Cl + HOCl ð4Þ

þ −
HOCl→H + OCl ð5Þ

− −
R + OCl →CO2 + H2 O + Cl ð6Þ

where: R is the organic compound.

The main advantages of using these electrochemical methods
include that they do not consume a significant amount of chemicals, Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of experimental set-up: (A) cubic cell and (B) cylindrical cell.
nor do they produce sludge. Additionally, the processes are commonly
performed at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, thus
avoiding the undesirable volatilization and discharge of untreated 2.3. Analytical methods
residues [12].
Despite an extensive literature concerning the application of For analytical determinations, aliquots were taken at convenient
electrochemical technologies for removing dyes from water [4], there times. The concentration of the treated RB5 solution was measured
are no reports concerning the influence of electrochemical cell design spectrophotometrically (Unicam Helios β, Thermo Electron Corp.)
in the dye elimination by anodic oxidation, to the best of our based on the constructed calibration curves at an absorption
knowledge. To favour the electrochemical oxidation of organic wavelength of 597 nm. The sample was diluted with distilled water
compounds, we evaluated the effect of working with anodic surfaces if its absorbance exceeded the range of calibration curve. The
that have higher active surfaces areas than cathodic ones. decolourisation, expressed in terms of percentage, was calculated
In this study, an azo dye, Reactive Black 5 (RB5), was selected as using the diminution of the dye concentration during the electro-
the model dye. The aims of the study are to investigate (1) the effect of chemical treatment [13]. Moreover, the degradation of aromatic
the electrochemical cell configuration in the anode oxidation and fragments of RB5 solution was also measured spectrophotometrically
(2) the influence of electrolyte addition during electrochemical dye at 310 and 254 nm. The assays were performed in duplicate, and the
removal. The best conditions and configuration were then tested in experimental error was less than 3%.
the electrochemical degradation of phenanthrene, a model organic Total organic content (TOC) was determined by using a Lange
compound. cuvette test (LCK 380) in a Hach Lange DR 2800. The sample was
introduced into the Lange cuvette. Under the conditions of the test,
2. Experimental the organic carbon forms carbon dioxide, which diffuses through a
membrane into an indicator solution. The change of colour of the
2.1. Chemicals indicator solution is evaluated photometrically.
Phenanthrene concentration was assayed by HPLC using an Agilent
The RB5 (C.I. No. 20505; C26H21Na4N5O19S6, purity ca. 55%, 1100 HPLC with an XDB-C8 reverse-phase column. The injection
MW = 991.8 g mol− 1) and phenanthrene were purchased from volume was set at 5 μL and the isocratic eluent, 60% acetonitrile and
Sigma-Aldrich and were used as received. The phenanthrene solution 40% water, was pumped at a rate of 1 mL min− 1. Detection was
was prepared by mixing the PAH with a solubilising solution of 2% performed using a diode array detector from 200 to 400 nm.
acetone and 1% Tween 80. NaCl was obtained from Panreac (analytical
grade, purity 99%, Spain) and Na2SO4 from Riedel-de Haen (analytical 2.4. Kinetic study
grade, France). Both were used as electrolyte during the electro-
chemical process. The dye concentration profiles during the treatment time were
fitted to a suitable kinetic equation, and the rate constant was
2.2. Electrochemical cells calculated using SigmaPlot 4.0 (1997) software. The SigmaPlot curve
fitter uses an iterative procedure based on the Marquardt–Levenberg
Experiments were carried out in two electrochemical cell config- algorithm, which seeks the values of the parameters that minimise the
urations. The first, a cubic cell (Fig. 1a), had a working volume of 0.4 L sum of the squared differences between the observed and predicted
with graphite electrodes (6.5 cm high and 8.5 cm wide) and had an values of the dependent variable.
electrode gap of 8 cm.
The second configuration, a cylindrical cell (Fig. 1b), consisted of a 3. Results and discussion
cylindrical vessel with a working volume of 0.4 L and two coaxial
cylindrical electrodes. The cathode was placed in the centre of the cell To achieve a high level of efficiency in the overall process of the
and consisted of a graphite bar with a diameter of 6.5 mm, while the electrochemical treatment, several factors must be taken into
anode was attached to the cell wall and consisted of a sheet of consideration such as the cell configuration and the electrolyte
graphite (6.5 cm high with a diameter of 8.5 cm). used, including both the species and concentration of electrolyte. In
In both cases, a constant potential difference (5 V) was applied this study, a cell with anodic surfaces that have higher active surfaces
with a power supply (HP model 3662), the process was monitored areas than cathodic ones was tested and compared with a conven-
with a multimeter (Fluke 175) and magnetic stirrings were used to tional cell in which both electrodes have the same surface area. In
prevent concentration and pH gradients. Samples of reaction mixtures addition, a study was conducted comparing the electrochemical
were taken from the electrochemical cells during the electrochemical treatment without an electrolyte, using the inert electrolyte Na2SO4
process to be analysed. The experiments were performed twice, and and using the non-inert electrolyte NaCl in an attempt to increase the
the experimental margin of error was below 3%. efficiency of the decolourisation process.
 M. Rivera et al. / Desalination 274 (2011) 39–43 41

3.5
3.1. Effect of cell configuration and the Na2SO4 addition

Initially, the electrochemical process in both the cubic and the 3.0
cylindrical cells was tested at an initial RB5 concentration of 70 mg L− 1
[14,15]. The visible spectrum of RB5 shows a maximum absorption in 2.5
the range of visible light (λ = 597 nm), which is in accordance with the

Absorbance
blue colour of RB5 solutions. Thus, the measurement of the colour 2.0
removal was obtained using a UV/vis spectrophotometer at 597 nm.
As it can be observed in Fig. 2, the direct oxidation of RB5 on the 1.5
anode surface in the experiment performed without electrolyte was
very low in both cells, reaching a decolourisation percentage of only 1.0
10% and 25% after 3 h of treatment in cubic and cylindrical cells,
respectively. These values indicate that the low conductivity of the 0.5
RB5 solution, which also limited the extent of other reactions on the
electrodes, for example, electrolysis of water. However, the best result 0.0
was obtained when the cylindrical cell was used. Although the total 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
electrode surface area for both configurations was the same, the Wavelength (nm)
anodic surface area in the cylindrical cell was greater, which favoured
Fig. 3. UV/visible spectra of RB5 during electrochemical dye degradation at 0 h (solid
the degradation of organic compounds. line) and after 3 h in the cubic cell (dashed line) and in the cylindrical cell (dotted line)
The relationship between electrolytes and the electrochemical in the presence of 0.1 M Na2SO4.
process has been established previously [7,16]. In general, high
electrolyte concentration increases the electric current densities in
the solution and, for this reason, high concentrations of inert Similar behaviour was detected operating with the cubic cell. The
electrolyte should increase the electrode reaction rate. In these absorbance was reduced over time, and a decolourisation of 84% was
experiments, the electrolyte Na2SO4 at concentrations ranging from measured at the end of the experiment that corresponded to a TOC
0.001 to 0.1 M was added to check its effect in the electrochemical reduction of 76%.
process. The absorption peaks at 310 and 254 nm in the UV region are
As can be seen in Fig. 2, the oxidation of RB5 performed in the characteristic peaks of naphthalene and benzene ring structure,
presence of 0.01 M Na2SO4 increased the reaction rate significantly, respectively, which correspond to π–π* electron transitions [18,19].
and high colour removals were reached using a shorter treatment In both cells, it was observed that the rate of colour removal was faster
time. When the concentration of sulphate was increased to 0.1 M, the than the rate of degradation of aromatic fragments. For this reason,
treatment time necessary to obtain the same oxidation was reduced. the changes in absorbance are more rapid than those observed in TOC,
Fig. 3 shows the visible spectrum of RB5 before and after treatment indicating that during the first stages of the treatment, there are
in both cells. In agreement with the results obtained by Damodar and mechanisms that involve the oxidation of the dye to other simpler
You [17], it is clearly evident that RB5 exhibits three characteristic organics. The oxidation of this complex molecule RB5 can lead to the
absorbance peaks found at 595, 310 and 254 nm, which were formation of many intermediates, which rapidly decreases the
progressively changed during the treatment. measured absorbance at 597 nm, by elimination of chromophore
The peak at 595 nm in the visible region is characteristic of the groups prior to the formation of aliphatic carboxylic acids and carbon
chromophore containing a long conjugated π-system, linking the two dioxide which justifies the changes in the TOC values.
azo double bond groups of RB5, which was used to measure the After the experiments, negligible RB5 presence was detected in the
decolourisation [18,19]. In the cylindrical cell, the intensity of the electrodes. Therefore, these results clearly indicate that the RB5 dye
visible peak decreased continuously until its disappearance after was decolourised and also degraded during this process. Also, it
about 3 h of treatment, leading to complete solution decolourisation. showed that the rate of mineralization in the cubic cell was slower
At this electrolysis time, only 95% of the initial TOC was removed. than the cylindrical cell. Therefore, the cylindrical cell was selected for
the kinetic study.

100
3.2. Kinetic study

It was found that the concentrations of dyes in aqueous solutions

80
decreased exponentially with treatment time following a first-order
Decolourisation (%)

kinetic with respect to the dye concentration. As shown in Fig. 4, the

60
value of the kinetic coefficient k depends on the Na2SO4 concentration
used. For this reason, the actual behaviour of this process follows
pseudo-first order kinetics, whose pseudo-first order kinetic coeffi-
40 cient depends nonlinearly on the Na2SO4 concentration. Therefore, it
was determined that the relationship between the kinetic coefficient
and the Na2SO4 concentration can be rewritten as follows:
20
K max ·CNa2 SO4
K= ð7Þ
Cs + CNa2 SO4
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
As can be seen in Fig. 4, the experimental data shows a good fit to
Time (min)
the theoretical model present in Eq. 7 (R2 = 0.989). The kinetic
Fig. 2. Decolourisation profiles of RB5 in the cubic cell (open symbols) and the
parameters were Kmax = 0.00197 min− 1 and Cs = 0.0027 M. Thus,
cylindrical cell (solid symbols) during electrochemical treatment in the presence of high concentrations of inert electrolyte should be able to increase the
Na2SO4 (0 M: square, 0.01 M: triangle, 0.1 M: circle). reaction rate. There is a limit to the amount of electrolyte that can be
42 M. Rivera et al. / Desalination 274 (2011) 39–43

0.025
and benzene ring structure at 310 and 254 nm in UV region,
respectively, were higher in the presence of NaCl than Na2SO4.
Moreover, Wang et al. [22] have emphasised that besides colour
0.020
removal, toxicity is also an important criterion when evaluating
effluent quality. Thus, during electrochemical oxidation, chloride is
0.015
anodically converted to chlorine and/or hypochloric acid, which
k (min)-1

oxidise organic matters and are simultaneously reduced to chloride.

Therefore, the toxic chloro-organic compounds that may be formed
0.010 during electrochemical oxidation with NaCl are the primary disad-
vantage of this electrolyte [23].
Consequently, these results indicate the suitability of the cylindri-
0.005 cal cell in the presence of Na2SO4 at the limit of electrolyte
concentration to the electrochemical treatment of coloured effluents.

0.000
0.000 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12
3.4. Degradation of phenanthrene
Concentration of Na2SO4 (M)
The high potential of the cell design to treat RB5 solutions was
Fig. 4. Pseudo-first order kinetic constants to different electrolyte Na2SO4 concentra-
tions. The symbols represent the experimental data and the line represents the fit to demonstrated because it led to higher decolourisation and mineral-
Eq. 2. ization levels. The data suggested that this treatment could offer an
alternative for the degradation of other recalcitrant organic com-
pounds, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). These
used to affect the reaction rate, that is, after a certain amount of compounds constitute a class of organic substances that consist of two
electrolyte is added, the maximum reaction rate is attained and no or more fused benzene rings made up of carbon and hydrogen atoms.
additional increase in electrolyte addition will affect the rate. This These hydrocarbons are by-products of the incomplete combustion or
behaviour is in accordance with the results obtained by Rivera et al. pyrolysis of recalcitrant organic materials with strong mutagenic and/
[20] in the decolourisation of Lissamine Green by sonoelectrochemical or carcinogenic properties [24]. Thus, the remediation of PAH-
treatment. contaminated sites is an important environmental issue. It is difficult
to remediate the environment by conventional treatment methods
3.3. Effect of NaCl after PAHs have entered, as they are essentially recalcitrant and
persistent. For this reason, many research efforts have been expanded
In an attempt to improve the electrochemical treatment, a to find suitable methods for the remediation of PAH-contaminated
comparative study with the non-inert electrolyte NaCl was conducted. soil and water [25,26].
These experiments were carried out in both cells with a solution of Based on the excellent results obtained in the removal of RB5, a
70 mg L− 1 RB5 and 10 g L− 1 NaCl. comparative study between both cells, operating in the conditions
As can be seen in Fig. 5, complete decolourisation was obtained in described above were applied to the model PAH phenanthrene, was
both cells. However the TOC removal was higher in the cylindrical cell conducted. The samples were prepared with an initial concentration
(93%) than the cubic cell (79%). Therefore, the addition of chloride of approximately 100 μM phenanthrene and 0.1 M Na2SO4.
ions is beneficial to the decolourisation of RB5, but not to the TOC As can be seen in Fig. 6, it is clear that the best results were obtained
reduction. when the cylindrical cell was employed. After experiments, negligible
In agreement with the results that were obtained by Song et al. phenanthrene presence was detected in the electrodes. Under the
[21], it was detected that the addition of chloride ions is beneficial to above-listed optimal conditions, the initial phenanthrene concentra-
stripping the chromophoric groups, but is unfavourable for cleavage tion decreased by approximately 92% in 1 day, while in the cubic cell
of the phenyl groups. Thus, the characteristic peaks of naphthalene the values were 60%. In both experiments, total mineralization was
detected at the end of the electrochemical treatment.
3.5
100
3.0
Phenanthrene removal(%)

80
2.5
Absorbance

2.0 60

1.5
40
1.0

20
0.5

0.0 0
200 300 400 500 600 700 800 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
Wavelength (nm) Time (d)

Fig. 5. UV/visible spectra of RB5 during electrochemical dye degradation at 0 h (solid Fig. 6. Degradation of phenanthrene profiles in the cubic cell (open symbols) and the
line) and after 3 h in the cubic cell (dashed line) and in the cylindrical cell (dotted line) cylindrical cell (solid symbols) during electrochemical treatment in the presence of
in the presence of 10 g L− 1 NaCl. 0.1 M Na2SO4.
 M. Rivera et al. / Desalination 274 (2011) 39–43 43

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