The potential of coupled water electrolysis with electrochemical wastewater treatments

The coupled water electrolysis is a promising strategy for green hydrogen production. Pollutants are attractive feedstocks for the fungible anode reactions of the sluggish oxygen evolution reaction, with the advantages of trash-to-treasure and cost reduction. There is an urgent need for real waste sample tests from the view of both contaminant abatement and electrochemical hydrogen production. This work offers a systematic evaluation of the coupled water electrolysis with real wastewater, where four real wastewater with sulfur element compounds in different states are taken as examples. The technical and economic potentials are evaluated particularly based on the coupled water electrolysis performances, including cell voltage, current density, hydrogen production rate, hydrogen electricity consumption, and pollution abatement. The coupled water electrolysis with the refractory wastewater, e.g. the desulfurization wastewater from coal-fired power plants and the H acid wastewater, does not show advantages from the view of hydrogen production, due to the high overpotential and limited current density. Nevertheless, hydrogen is a high-value-added byproduct for operation cost reduction from the view of wastewater treatment. The readily oxidizable pollutants, e.g. sulfite and sulfide, exhibit notable potentials for anodic depolarization and electricity consumption reduction of hydrogen production. However, the coupled water electrolysis adopting the sulfide spent caustic stream may suffer a low hydrogen production rate for sulfide to sulfur. The coupled water electrolysis adopting sulfite wastewater indicates excellent potential for both space-time yield and electricity consumption for hydrogen production. This work may offer a reference for the systematic evaluation and selection of coupled water electrolysis with real wastewater.