Cottrell, P. Maxine, Master's thesis, Colorado State University, Fort Collins. 111 pp, 2018

A configurable mobile pilot-scale reactor was designed for testing electrochemical degradation performance under site-specific conditions and with different dimensionally stable electrode materials. Assessment of critical design parameters in a bench-scale reactor showed that 1,4-dioxane (DX) degradation rates almost doubled when no inter-electrode solid media were used. No significant differences were observed between operating the reactor in continuous versus batch mode. An additional 57% degradation rate improvement was achieved when the batch reactor was operated with 30-min polarity reversals as compared with constant polarity. Bench-scale reactor and initial pilot reactor tests with Ti/IrO₂-Ta₂O₅ electrodes were run using a synthetic groundwater solution containing DX in NaCl electrolyte, revealing substantial effects of scale, while DX degradation kinetics were similar. Groundwater from a contaminated industrial site was treated in the pilot reactor as well as in a commercial bench-scale reactor with a Magneli-phase titanium oxide anode. In comparison of the surface-area normalized rates of removal, the commercial reactor was faster than the pilot reactor, but it consumed more energy per order reduction and generated more undesirable reaction by-products. The ultimate design goal is to accommodate straightforward scale-up for field applications and low cost of production so that multiple modular units can be deployed to operate in series or in parallel. https://mountainscholar.org/handle/10217/189359