Application of Nanotechnology in Water Research

Chapter 14

Doped Diamond Electrodes for Water Treatment

Qingyi Shao*, Guangwen Wang, Cairu Shao, Juan Zhang and Shejun Hu

Laboratory of Quantum Information Technology, School of Physics and Telecommunication Engineering, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China

*Corresponding author: [e-mail]

Abstract

Doped diamond anodes which allow the direct production of OH radicals from water electrolysis with very high current efficiencies are especially interesting for the destruction/detection of organic pollutants in water. This has been explained by the very high overvoltage for oxygen production and many other anodic electrode processes on diamond anodes. Anodic oxidation with boron-doped nanocrystalline diamond (BDND) anodes is a new advanced oxidation process (AOP) with many advantages compared to other known chemical and photochemical AOPs. The technology of the p-type doped diamond thin films (mainly boron-doped films) has become quite mature. However the preparations of the n-type doped diamond thin films are quite difficult. We have calculated the electronic structures and the density of states (DOS) in the phosphorus-doped diamond with different phosphorus concentrations by the first principle method. The calculation results show the conductivity increases as the doped concentration increases. We have also calculated the density of states and the Mulliken population of the diamond and the co-doped diamonds with different concentrations of lithium (Li) and phosphorus ...