This project will devise new, efficient, and clean electrocatalytic methods for destruction of halogenated pollutants such as PCB's and PBB's. Techniques will be applicable to other toxic haloromatic chemicals in our environment like chlorinated dibenzodioxins and dibenzofurans. We will develop new micelle- and microemulsion-based catalyst systems usable in water-containing media where pollutants are most likely to be found in nature. The use of visible light to enhance rates of catalytic dehalogenation will be explored, an approach which may lead to solar-electrocatalytic decomposition of organo-halides. We will use and further develop electrocatalytic, photo-electrocatalytic, and thermometric methods for establishing kinetic and thermodynamic properties of carbon-halogen cleavage reactions of toxic PCB's and PBB's. This aspect of the work will provide Eo-values, reactive-intermediate lifetimes, and kinetic data for reactions of toxic congeners, which will yield insight into environmental and toxicologic interactions of halobiphenyls, and be useful in correlating structure with toxic, photochemical, and biological reactivities. Electrocatalytic dehalogenation will be extended to alkyl dihalides such as EDB, a contaminant of water supplies in the eastern U.S. The research is expected to yield significant contributions to an eventual solution of the public health problem of pollution of the environment with organo-halide compounds. It promises to generate some new approaches to our long-term goal of developing clean general methods for degradative cleanup of contaminated materials such as sediments, soils, and industrial fluids. It is hoped that our fundamental results will aid in research aimed at elucidating mechanisms of environmental degradation and toxicity of these ubiquitous and persistent pollutants.
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