thus requiring less maintenance. dosing incoming waste water with sodium hypochlorite assists reduction of biochemical oxygen demand (bod) and consequent chemical oxygen demand (cod) although this should be avoided for wastewater containing high levels of organic compounds or dissolved ammonia (nh4+) due to formation of trihalogenated methanes (thms) or other chlorinated organics. sodium hypochlorite can be generated electrolytically in an e cell using platinum and similar inert electrodes or by using external electrochlorinators. due to the excellent ec removal of suspended solids and the simplicity of the ec operation, tests conducted for the u.s. office of naval research concluded that the most promising application of ec in a membrane system was found to be as pretreatment to a multi-membrane system of uf/ro or microfiltration/reverse osmosis (mf/ro). in this function the ec provides protection of the low-pressure membrane that is more general than that provided by chemical coagulation and more effective. ec is very effective at removing a number of membrane fouling species (such as silica, alkaline earth metal hydroxides and transition group metals) as well as removing many species that chemical coagulation alone cannot remove. (see refractory organics) medical treatment electrocoagulationmeshd004564 machine for medical electrocoagulation a fine wire probe or other delivery mechanism is used to transmit radio waves to tissues near the probe. molecules in the tissue are caused to vibrate, leading to a rapid increase in temperature, causing coagulation of the proteins in the tissue and effectively killing the tissue. at higher-powered applications, full desiccation of tissue is possible.