Study on mathematical model of peroxide synthesis in intermittent circulating electrochemical reactor

Peroxide synthesis in intermittent circulating electrochemical reactor (ICER) with a novel gas diffusion electrode was studied in this paper. Based on coulomb's law and material conservation law, a mathematical model of H₂O₂ concentrations related to current, electrolysis time, electrolyte residence time and electrolyte volume was developed, and the model parameters were estimated by fitting all experimental data. The model was proved to be quite reliable by significance test, residual distribution and experimental verification. The results predicted by our model were greatly consistent with the experimental results. Furthermore, influences of different factors on peroxide synthesis could be clearly observed by the model: The inlet and outlet H₂O₂ concentrations of ICER increased linearly with increasing current and electrolysis time. Higher current value would lead to some secondary reactions and reduce the current efficiencies, which caused a deviation H₂O₂ concentration from the line. With increasing electrolyte flow rate, the inlet and outlet H₂O₂ concentration increased and decreased, respectively.