Conventional wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) suffer
from high
carbon emissions and are inefficient in removing emerging organic
pollutants (EOPs). Consequently, we have developed a low operational
carbon emissions multifunctional photoelectrochemical (PEC) system
for saline sewage treatment to simultaneously remove organic pollutants,
ammonia, and bacteria, coupled with H2 evolution. A reduced
BiVO4 (r-BiVO4) photoanode with enhanced PEC
properties, ascribed to constructing sufficient oxygen vacancies and
V4+ species, was synthesized for the aforementioned technique.
The PEC/r-BiVO4 process could treat saline sewage to meet
local WWTPs’ discharge standard in 40 min at 2.0 V vs Ag/AgCl and completely degrade carbamazepine (one of
EOPs), coupled with 633 μmol of H2 production; 93.29%
reduction in operational carbon emissions and 77.82% decrease in direct
emissions were achieved by the PEC/r-BiVO4 process compared
with large-scale WWTPs, attributed to the restrained generation of
CH4 and N2O. The PEC system activated chloride
ions in sewage to generate numerous reactive chlorine species and
facilitate •OH production, promoting contaminants
removal. The PEC system exhibited operational feasibility at varying
pH and total suspended solids concentrations and has outstanding reusability
and stability, confirming its promising practical potential. This
study proposed a novel PEC reaction for reducing operational carbon
emissions from saline sewage treatment.
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