Electrokinetic study in an Electroremediation cell

In this work, potentiostatic studies were carried out in an electroremediation cell, using sand as porous medium, water as electrolyte and wetting agent, a constant potential of 20 V was applied for 24 hours. The simulation of the same process was carried out in three dimensions with COMSOL 3.2 software, with the real cell measurements, considering a scale factor of 5 and 3275 mesh nodes, the potential and duration was the same as the experimental one. To determine the velocity profile of the electrolytes the Navier Stokes equation was used, and for the sand the Darcy equation was used. The mass balance was performed with the Nernst-Planck equation. The pH was determined experimentally and by simulation, observing that due to the electrolysis reaction of the water, the pH of the anolyte decreases with respect to the initial one, in the soil the pH is acidic near the anodic region, and this increases near the cathodic region, while in the catholyte the pH is alkaline. The simulation results show the same trend as those obtained experimentally. By means of the model, different variables of the electrokinetic process were evaluated, helping to understand the electroremediation process.