A Simple 1D Convection-Diffusion Model of Oxalic Acid Oxidation Using Reactive Electrochemical Membrane

In recent years, electrochemical methods utilizing reactive electrochemical membranes (REM) have been recognized as the most promising technologies for the removal of organic pollutants from water. In this paper, we propose a 1D convection-diffusion-reaction model concerning the transport and oxidation of oxalic acid (OA) and oxygen evolution in the flow-through electrochemical oxidation system with REM. It allows the determination of unknown parameters of the system by treatment of experimental data and predicts the behavior of the electrolysis setup. There is a good agreement in calculated and experimental data at different transmembrane pressures and initial concentrations of OA. The model provides an understanding of the processes occurring in the system and gives the concentration, current density, potential, and overpotential distributions in REM. The dispersion coefficient was determined as a fitting parameter and it is in good agreement with literary data for similar REMs. It is shown that the oxygen evolution reaction plays an important role in the process even under the kinetic limit, and its contribution decreases with increasing total organic carbon flux through the REM.