Abstract
This work investigates the effect of electrolyte concentration (% NaCl) and organic loading (oxalic acid concentration) on the performance of a newly developed electrode of polyaniline coated graphite (PANG). The galvanostatic technique was used for building the new electrode under different aniline concentrations. The PANG electrode was characterized using different techniques such as FT-IR, XRD and SEM. The characterization results indicated that PANI was deposited on the graphite surface in the conductive form. The developed electrode was then investigated for its specific energy consumption and its kinetic performance in the electrooxidation of oxalic acid under different electrolyte concentrations (% NaCl) and different initial oxalic acid concentrations. The results showed that the PANG electrode is more efficient than the bare graphite electrode in both improving the reaction rate and increasing the energy efficiency of the process. The results showed that the mass transfer coefficient could be related to the concentrations of the different components by the relation: K= a C-NaCl. C-oxalic(-0.556). The electrooxidation index (EOI) of the new PANG electrode was found to be much higher than that of the bare graphite electrode by a factor ranging from 15 to 800% depending on the solution composition.