Electrochemical oxidation of para-chlorophenol on Ti/SnO2-PbO2 electrodes: introduction of a parameter for the estimation of their efficiency.

To oxidate otherwise non-biodegradable organic pollutants as chlorophenol has recently been proposed the promising electro-combustion technique. We considered two different types of electrodic material: boron doped diamond (BDD) and lead dioxide electro-deposited on a Ti/SnO2 substrate and we investigated differences between them in terms of organics oxidation efficiency. In the batch system we utilised for the combustion, the experimental parameters we investigated, initial concentration of the organic compound, temperature and current density furnished to the system--showed us that a parameter like the Instantaneous Current Efficiency (ICE) is affected by mass-transfer limitation at the end of the tests. In this paper we therefore introduce a new parameter not influenced by these problems that can be very effective for the description of electrode efficiency during the conduction of experiences.