Figures-of-Merit for the Technical Development and Application of Advanced Oxidation Processes

Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), which involve the in-situ generation of highly potent chemical oxidants such as the hydroxyl radical (•OH), have recently emerged as an important class of technologies for accelerating the oxidation and hence destruction of a wide range of organic contaminants in polluted water and air. We propose generally applicable standard figures-of-merit for comparing these waste treatment technologies. These figures-of-merit are based on electrical energy consumption within two phenomenological kinetic order regimes: one for high contaminant concentrations (electrical energy per mass, EE/M) and one for low concentrations (electrical energy per order of magnitude per m