• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.50 no.6
• /
• pp.454-463
• /
• 2006

refractory organic compounds in aqueous solution are not readily removed by the existing conventional wastewater treatment process. In recent years, the sonolysis and electrochemical oxidation process had been shown to be promising for wastewater treatment due to the effectiveness and easiness in operation. This study was performed to investigate the characteristics of sonolytic and electrolytic decomposition as the basic data for development of the wastewater treatment process. Trichloroethylene(TCE) and 2,4- dichlorophenol(2,4-DCP) were used as the samples, and their destruction efficiency were measured with various operating parameters, such as initial solution concentration, initial solution pH, reaction temperature, sonic power and current density. Also, the decomposition mechanism conformed indirectly with the effect of NaHCO3 as a radical scavenger on the decomposition reaction. Thermal decompositon reaction is predominant for TCE but thermal and radical decompositon reactions were dominant for 2,4-DCP. Results showed that the destruction efficiencies of all samples were above 65% within 120 minutes by sonolysis and electrolysis at the same time, and were increased with increasing initial concentration, sonic power and current density. Destruction efficiency of TCE was high in the acidic solution, but 2,4-DCP showed high destruction efficiency in basic solution.