There are several mechanisms by which passing a current through the electrochemical cell can encourage pollutant desorption. Ions generated at the electrodes can change local pH conditions in the divided cell which affect the adsorption equilibrium and have been shown to promote desorption of organic pollutants such as phenols from the carbon surface. Other mechanisms include reactions between the ions generated and the adsorbed pollutants resulting in the formation of a species with a lower adsorptive affinity for activated carbon that subsequently desorb, or the oxidative destruction of the organics on the carbon surface. It is agreed that the main mechanisms are based on desorption induced regeneration as electrochemical effects are confined to the surface of the porous carbons so cannot be responsible for bulk regeneration.
The performance of different regeneration methods can be directly compared using the regeneration efficiency. This is defined as: