Preparation of electrolyzed oxidizing water by TiO2 doped IrO2-Ta2O5 electrode with high selectivity and stability for chlorine evolution

Electrolyzed oxidizing water (EO water) is a new disinfectant, which has been proved to possess the high bactericidal efficiency against a wide variety of microorganisms ranging from bacteria to viruses. EO water is generated by electrolysis of an extremely dilute NaCl solution. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance the selectivity of chlorine evolution reaction (CER), which the oxygen evolution side reaction (OER) needs to be minimized. In the present study, the TiO2 doped IrO2-Ta2O5 (IrO2-Ta2O5-TiO2) electrode was prepared by the thermal decomposition method. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) characterizations were employed to study the performances the IrO2-Ta2O5-TiO2 electrode. The electrochemical behaviors and actives of the IrO2-Ta2O5-TiO2 electrode coupled with the IrO2-Ta2O5 electrode was investigated using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and linear sweep voltammetry (LSV). Furthermore, the selectivity of CER was analyzed through the potential difference between the CER and OER at a constant current density to illustrate the discrepancy in available chlorine content (ACC) of two kinds of oxide electrodes in the EO water preparation. In addition, the accelerated service lifetime of the IrO2-Ta2O5-TiO2 electrode was also discussed in this article.