Development of Chemical Oxygen Demand On-Line Monitoring System Based on a Photoelectrochemical Degradation Principle

A simple, rapid, and sensitive on-line chemical oxygen demand (COD) determination method has been proposed and experimentally validated. The method is based on a photoelectrochemical oxidative degradation principle and operates under a continuous flow mode. The method employs a specially designed thin-layer photoelectrochemical cell that incorporates a highly effective nanoparticulate TiO2 photoanode. This approach overcomes many problems associated with the conventional COD determination techniques such as long analysis time, consumption of expensive and toxic reagents, production of secondary toxic waste, and poor reproducibility. The effect of important experimental parameters on the analytical signal generation was systematically investigated, and the optimum conditions were obtained. The method was successfully applied to determine the COD of real samples from various industrial wastewaters. The COD value of real samples determined by this method agreed well with the standard dichromate method. The assay time of 1-5 min/sample can be readily achieved. A practical detection limit of 1 mg L(-1) COD with a linear range of 1-100 mg L(-1) was achieved under the optimum conditions.