An overview on the elimination of organic contaminants from aqueous systems using electrochemical advanced oxidation processes

Abstract Hazardous organic pollutants have been attracting heightened interest in recent years due to their persisting properties, low biodegradability, and negative influence on aquatic life, wildlife, and humans even at low concentrations. Considering their dangerous effect on the environment, several treatments using different techniques were adopted to remove them from water and wastewater. Herein, electrochemical advanced oxidation processes (EAOPs), especially anodic oxidation (AO), electro-Fenton (EF), heterogeneous electro-Fenton (HEF), and photoelectro-Fenton (PEF), have been thoroughly reviewed and found to be promising compared to conventional methods. The state of the art of the previous treatment processes has been discussed in detail, where each technique has its own merits and challenges. These processes depend on their operating conditions mainly pH, current density, nature of electrodes used, and conductivity of the solution, etc. The efficiencies of EAOPs follows the order as PEF > EF > AO and can mineralize the recalcitrant organic pollutants completely.