Active Stainless Steel/SnO2-CeO2 Anodes for Pollutants Oxidation Prepared by Thermal Decomposition

Stainless steel plates were successfully coated with SnO2-CeO2 films (SS/SnO2-CeO2) by brush coating with a solution of stannous chloride and cerium trichloride followed by thermal decomposition. It is proven that the properties of SnO2 films can be evidently improved by Ce doping, and 600°C is the optimum temperature to prepare SS/SnO2-CeO2 anodes. The physicochemical and electrochemical properties as well as the electrocatalytic activity of the electrodes were investigated. It is found that the novel electrodes have compact microstructure, high overpotential for oxygen evolution (1.60 V vs SCE), excellent electrochemical stability, relatively low cost and excellent catalytic activity for oxidizing pollutants. An industrial dye wastewater, which is hard to be purified by using conventional chemical flocculation methods, was oxidated by employing the SS/SnO2-CeO2 anodes, and 83.00% of color and 48.62% of chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal was achieved under the cell voltage of 5 V within only 2 min, and the electricity consumption is only 1.83 kWh for oxidizing 1 m3 of dye wastewater.