Significant concerns continue to be raised over environmental pollution of soils and water resources. Chemical fate and transport coupled with redox manipulation are the primary processes that have been considered for removing contamination and minimizing exposure. Electrochemical processes utilize electron transfer to drive transport of chemicals and redox manipulation for treatment of contaminated media. Electrokinetic remediation relies on the electric field to transport contaminants in low permeability soils toward the electrode vicinity for removal. In water cleanup, both electroreduction and electrooxidation have been used. Electroreduction has been used for dechlorination and defluorination of halogenated calcitrant compounds. Electrooxidation has also gained significant potential for transformation of many legacy and emerging contaminants. For example, organic contaminants could be oxidized directly on anode surface (direct anodic oxidation), by electrochemically generated hydroxyl radicals or by other electrochemically generated oxidants (indirect anodic oxidation). In this article, we present an overview of the state‐of‐the‐art electrochemical processes for treatment of contaminated soil and water. We also describe a perspective for future research directions in the field of electrochemical treatment of contaminated media.

A comprehensive model that integrates coupled effects of chemical, physical, and electrochemical processes, is necessary for design, analysis, and implementation of the electro-remediation of groundwater under flow conditions. A coupled system of equations to solve for transport and multiple reactions in an electrochemical reactor is numerically intensive due to highly stiff nature of reaction model formulation. In this study, the focus is to develop an efficient model for reactions associated with the transport and physico-chemical transformation in an electrochemical reactor. The model incorporates effects of transport mechanisms as well as chemical and electrochemical reactions. Model verification is provided for pH profiles under different electrolyte compositions in two sets of reactors; a batch and a flow-through reactor. The model is able to predict the concentration of species during the electrochemical remediation process with a close correlation to experimental data (R2 = 0.99 for batch and R2 = 0.78 for flow-through reactor.) Imposing polarity reversal to the system will cause fluctuation of pH, however, the trend stays the same as if no polarity were applied. Ultimately, volumetric charge flow is introduced as a unique parameter characterizing the electroremediation reactor for operating purposes.