The reduction or elimination of persistent wastewater constituents, which can hardly be treated by conventional processes or even not, gained in importance the last years. Electro-chemical oxidation is expected to contribute to mineralization of constituents to form either CO2 and H2O or biologically degradable intermediates. In this paper ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) was investigated as representative of the class of N- and O- substituted hydrocarbon. EDTA is a widely used complexing agent and was rated as a dangerous substance in the water framework directive in the year 2000. In this master thesis the destruction of complex-forming properties of EDTA and the advanced decomposition by anodic oxidation was investigated. By variation of the operation parameters temperature, pH-value and current density the EDTA degradation as well as the TOC reduction were investigated. For the discussion of economics the specific energy demand was determined.