Effect of electrode materials on electrooxidation simultaneously used with UV irradiation (UV/EO) for atrazine removal

The use of atrazine (ATZ) in agriculture causes
a contamination in receiving water due to either (un)intentional drainage. ATZ
has been found in tap water since a water treatment process is generally
ineffective. Electrooxidation combined with UV irradiation (UV/EO) has been
recently considered as a novel advanced oxidation process because of its
numerous radical formations. The study aims to investigate the ATZ degradation
and its kinetics by the UV/EO process, compared with UV irradiation, UV/Chlorine,
and EO process. Also, effect of electrode materials on the ATZ removal was
studied. Among various treatments, the UV/EO process was the greatest ATZ
removal. The ATZ degradation was fitted with the pseudo first-order kinetic
model, and its rate constant (k') in the UV/EO process was 0.0374
min^-1. The k'
value in the UV/EO process with boron doped diamond (BDD) was 1.83 and 2.92
times higher than the EO and UV irradiation alone. The use of BDD at the anodic
site exhibited higher ATZ removals, compared with the dimensionally stable
anode (DSA).