Yes, you heard me correctly; Element Six, part of the De Beers group of companies has come out with a packaged treatment solution called Diamox that uses boron-doped diamond to take on highly contaminated industrial wastewater streams.
Diamox is an electrochemical oxidation cell which uses electrodes of Boron Doped Diamond (BDD) for treating wastewater, and it is extremely effective in treating highly contaminated industrial wastewater which cannot be treated biologically.
Diamond becomes a metal-like conductor but still retains all of its physical properties when heavily doped with boron, making it the most chemically inert and robust electrode material available. BDD electrodes generate hydroxyl radicals and various other oxidizing species, which allows advanced oxidation processes that can mineralise dissolved pollutants in wastewater streams to take place.
While electrochemical oxidation through BDD is not new, Diamox features a larger electrode area containing 20 electrodes, as well as an increased power density. This effectively means that it has five times the oxidation capacity of earlier models, and the fact that it is being marketed as a packaged reactor should make it more affordable and accessible for many more users.
Diamox was recently deployed as part of a pilot project to treat highly contaminated streams generated by refineries, and proved that it can bring down the chemical oxygen demand (COD) of such waste streams by more than 90%, to a level that is safe to discharge into the environment.
The technology has also proven effective in the treatment of textile dye house wastewater and pharmaceutical wastewater, and provides a cleaner alternative to incineration, deep well injection, or hydrogen peroxide advanced oxidation. The BDD electrodes have a field lifetime of several years, in conditions where other electrode materials would only be able to withstand a few hours.
This technology offers an innovative, safe method for the efficient electrochemical advanced oxidation process for treating wastewater and has triumphed against even the most formidable industrial wastewaters. So, it seems diamonds are not only a girl’s best friend…
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