how does Silver II work?
At the heart of the process is the chemical oxidation
of organic molecules by the Ag[II] ion. This is
one of the most oxidising species known. Radical
species generated by Ag[II] attack the organic
substrate – progressively converting it
in a series of steps irreversibly to CO2, water
and residual salts from hetero-atoms (including
halides, sulphur, nitrogen and phosphorus) - Figure
1.
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During the oxidation step, Ag[II] is reduced
back to Ag[I]. This is then regenerated to Ag[II]
again at the electrochemical anode (Figure 2).
This “catalytic” use of silver makes
this a Mediated Electrochemical Oxidation Process.
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SILVER II has been shown to be successful in
the treatment of solvents, oils, ion-exchange
resins, tissues etc, as well as water soluble
organics.
The Ag(II) is generated in-situ electrolytically
at the anodes of commercially available electrolytic
cells (Figure 3).
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It is the linking between this and the organic
oxidation that provides the benefits of the process,
as the reaction rate can be controlled by the
applied current (Figure 4).
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The rate of organic feed addition is matched
to the rate of destruction defined by the electrolytic
regeneration process (as illustrated in Figure
5).
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