The efficacious of AOP-based processes in concert with electrocoagulation in abatement of CECs from water/wastewater

Combining electrocoagulation with another process is a potential strategy for increasing the efficiency of water and wastewater pollutant removal. The integration of advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) and electrocoagulation (EC) demonstrates improved performance. The mechanism of the EC combined with ozone (O3), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), sulfate radicals, electrooxidation (EO), Fenton/electro-Fenton, and UV is discussed. This review sheds light on EC-AOP hybrid processes in terms of their mechanisms, development, challenges, and their potential application for the removal of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs). The majority of the articles claimed improved performance of the EC process when combined with AOP as a pre-treatment, especially in terms of removing recalcitrant contaminants. For instance, the integrated EC-Fenton/photo-Fenton processes have been shown to be a promising treatment to virtually complete removal of the phenolic compounds in oil refinery wastewater. In EC-EO process, boron doped diamond (BDD) anode, despite being costly electrode, has the highest oxidation potential and is therefore the most suitable type for the mineralization of organic pollutants. PFASs are more effective at being removed from water through zinc and Ti4O7 electrodes in EC-EO treatment. Furthermore, the peroxone and synergistic effects between O3 and coagulants played almost equal dominant role to removal of ibuprofen using hybrid EC-O3. However, enough data for conducting these integrated processes at industrial scale or with real wastewaters do not exist, and so there is a lack for comprehensive and systematic approaches to address complexity of such systems. Although a great number of papers were focused on the degradation of effluents from different industries, viruses, and pharmaceuticals, there is not sufficient research in terms of the removal of herbicides, pesticides, microplastics, and micropollutants.