Carbon felt-based electrochemical processes in the treatment of winery wastewater

• Autor(a) principal: Gonçalves, Pedro José Ferreira
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/14195
• topic: Carbon Felt; Efluente Vinícola; Eletro-Fenton; Oxidação Eletroquímica; Domínio/Área Científica::Engenharia e Tecnologia::Engenharia Química

The wine industry produces large amounts of wastewater, with this normally having a high organic load, and thus requiring treatment before discharge in the natural water courses. For this purpose, the electrochemical processes are an innovative alternative to the traditional biological processes, and as so, they are the focus of this work. Electrochemical treatment of wastewaters is already widely researched, so this work focused on studying a novel material in the treatment of winery wastewater, the carbon felt, and its potential as electrode material in two electrochemical processes, the electro-Fenton and the electrochemical oxidation. Multiple experiments were setup, and carbon felt was used both as an anode and as a cathode, and its process efficiency, reproducibility and durability were evaluated. Other parameters like current intensity and possible addition of electrolytes were also assessed. Results have shown that carbon felt as the potential of being used in electrochemical processes, having obtained similar load removal rates as some widely used materials, like boron-doped diamond, when used as an anode, and stainless steel, when used as a cathode. Its reproducibility also demonstrated positive results. However, its durability is somewhat lacking which could incite future studies towards the improvement of its durability and optimization of the process.