Electrochemical Oxidation of Tetracaine Hydrochloride using a Transition Metal Doped PbO2 Electrode

Pharmaceutical wastewater is a kind of biorefractory organic wastewater and could not be treated efficiently by the traditional biological wastewater process with the ever-increasing discharge standard. This work prepared Al/Zn doped PbO 2 anodes and used them to treat tetracaine hydrochloride by electrochemical oxidation process. The effects of operational factors, such as current density, initial concentration of tetracaine hydrochloride and the initial value of pH, were explored and discussed. The results showed that the electrochemical oxidation using Al/Zn doped PbO 2 electrode is an effective solution to treat this kind of wastewater. And the removal efficiency of tetracaine hydrochloride and COD were above 97.35% and 59.56% after 120 min at typical condition. The degradation mechanism was analyzed and the reaction mechanism was discussed by the free radical reaction mechanism of direct oxidation and indirect oxidation. This paper could provide basic data of electrochemical oxidation for the tetracaine hydrochloride and other pharmaceutical wastewater pollution control.