Degradation pathways of aniline in aqueous solutions during electro-oxidation with BDD electrodes and UV/H₂O₂ treatment

In this work, it has been studied the mineralization of aniline, a toxic substance of low biodegradability typically found in many industrial wastewaters, through electro-oxidation using boron doped diamond (BDD) electrodes and photo-oxidation (UV photolysis and UV/H₂O₂ treatments). It was observed that in electro-oxidation and UV/H₂O₂, it was feasible to reach aniline mineralizations higher than 85%. Two different degradation routes have been observed during the aniline oxidation in these two treatments. The first route was the mineralization pathway, in which aniline was oxidized to CO₂, water and nitrate. The second route was the polyaniline pathway in which polyanilines of high molecular weight are formed. The intermediate compounds involved in both degradation routes are different depending on the treatment used. In the electro-oxidation, denitrification processes were also observed. From an economical point of view, electro-oxidation of aniline using BDD electrodes is more interesting than UV/H₂O₂ due it has an 87% lower operational cost. So, electro-oxidation using BDD electrodes seems to be a more suitable technique for the mineralization of wastewater containing aniline than UV or H₂O₂ based technologies.