Bromate is a potential human carcinogen and is commonly
found in
water and wastewater after ozonation. Electrocatalytically, Pd has
shown good activity in reducing bromate to bromide; however, the energy
efficiency and cost of this technology in a realistic treatment system
remain unknown. A custom filter-press reactor with minimal mass-transfer
limitations was used to test the kinetics and energy consumption for
bromate reduction using Pd, Ru, or Cu on activated carbon cloth as
the cathode. In phosphate-buffered nanopure water at circumneutral
pH, 95% of bromate was reduced to bromide (from 200 to 10 μg/L)
in 1 h with a normalized activity of 2136 mL min–1 gPd
–1. The total energy consumption
was 0.576 kW h per gram of bromate removed, which is 9 to 43 times
lower than that in reported studies. In Austin tap water (TW) at pH
9.5, the normalized activity dropped to 544 mL min–1 gPd
–1, and the total energy consumption
increased to 2.198 kW h per gram of bromate removed, still an improvement
over all values reported in the literature despite the latter using
synthetic waters. This superior performance is due to the design of
the filter-press reactor that minimizes mass-transfer limitations
as well as solution resistance compared to reactors evaluated in the
literature, such as batch and three-dimensional electrochemical reactors.
We note that any lost activity due to catalyst oxidation and poisonings
in TW can be electrochemically regenerated by briefly applying a positive
and strongly negative potential. This electrocatalytic treatment has
estimated costs of $1.41 per 1000 gal (91% capital costs and 9% O&M
costs) and is comparable to ion exchange, granular activated carbon,
and reverse osmosis, yet benefits from no waste stream generation,
indicating that this technology is ready for evaluation at the pilot
scale.