Degradation of Nonylphenol Ethoxylate-10 (NPE-10) by Mediated Electrochemical Oxidation (MEO) Technology

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that mediated electrochemical oxidation (MEO) effectively degrades NPE-10, a harmful surfactant, with improved efficiency when using Ag(I) catalyst, confirmed by voltammetry, titrimetry, and LC-MS analyses.

Contribution

It introduces the use of Ce(IV) mediated electrochemical oxidation with Ag(I) catalyst for efficient NPE-10 degradation, showing significant improvement over non-catalyzed methods.

Findings

NPE-10 degradation reached 85.93% without catalyst.

Degradation improved to 95.12% with Ag(I) catalyst.

Formation of CO2 and new organic compounds confirmed degradation.

Abstract

Nonylphenol ethoxylate (NPE 10) is a non ionic surfactant which is synthesized from alkylphenol ethoxylate. The accumulation of NPE-10 in wastewater will endanger the ecosystem as well as human being. At present, by an advancement of technology NPE 10 can be degraded indirectly by using an electrochemically treatment. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the potential electrodegradation of NPE 10 by mediated electrochemical oxidation (MEO) using Ce(IV) ionic mediator. In addition, the influence of Ag(I) ionic catalyst in the performance of MEO for degradation of NPE 10 was also observed. The potency of MEO technology in degradation NPE 10 was evaluated by voltammetry technique and confirmed by titrimetry and LC-MS analyses. The results showed that in the absence of Ag(I) ionic catalyst, the degradation of NPE 10 by MEO was 85.93 %. Furthermore, when the Ag(I) ionic catalyst was applied, the performance of MEO in degradation of NPE 10 was improved to 95.12 %. The back titration using Ba(OH)2 confirmed the formation of CO2 by 46.79 %. Whereas the redox titration shows the total of degradation organic compounds by 42.50 %, which was emphasized by formation of two new peaks in LC-MS chromatogram. In summary, our results confirm the potential of MEO technology for NPE-10 degradation.