Innovative Electrochemical Treatment of Textile Dye Wastewater

Nasr, Fayza Aly; Sadik, Mervat A.; El-Shafai, Saber

doi:10.21608/ejchem.2019.10576.1683

Innovative Electrochemical Treatment of Textile Dye Wastewater

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Water Pollution Research, National Research Center

² October High Institute for Engineering & Technology, 6 October, Egypt

³ Water Pollution Research, National Research Center, Giza, Egypt

10.21608/ejchem.2019.10576.1683

Abstract

The application of electrocoagulation (EC) for removal of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and color from textile wastewater is the aim of this research. Batch wise experiments were carried out using iron electrodes to investigate effect of pH, current density and electrolysis time on percentage removals. Results show maximum removal efficiency of COD (65%) and color (97%) at 0.9 A and 0.4 A, respectively at 1.6 V and 120 minutes reaction time. Moreover, the results show that the COD removal is influenced by the pH with maximum removal at pH 8.The EC process improves wastewater biodegradability with increasing BOD/COD ratio from 29% to 34%.The results prove that the EC is effective in color and COD removal. Regarding electrical current, there was no significant difference between 0.5 A and 0.7A in color removal and so 0.5 A is selected as cost effective for the treatment process with estimated Electricity Consumption of 3.2 kWh/m3. Impact of treated wastewater on oxygen uptake rate of activated sludge biomass was investigated and the results indicated that both dye and minerals content have negative impact and therefore it is recommended to reuse treated effluent in industrial processes or consider total dissolved solids in the effluent disposal limits.

Keywords