Feasibility and advantage of biofilm-electrode reactor for phenol degradation

The new biofilm-electrode method was used for the phenol degradation, because of its low current requirement. The biofilm-electrode reactor consisted of immobilized degrading bacteria on Ti electrode as cathode and Ti/PbO2 electrode as anode. With the biofilm-electrode reactor in a divided electrolytic cell, the phenol degradation rate could achieve 100% at 18 h which was higher than using traditional methods, such as biological or electrochemical methods. Chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal rate of the biofilm-electrode reactor was also greater than that using biological and electrochemical method, and could reach 80% at 16 h. The results suggested that the biofilm-electrode reactor system can be used to treat wastewater with phenol.