Abstract
Contamination of natural groundwater by arsenic (As) is a serious problem that appears in some areas of Northern Central Mexico (NCM). In this research, As was removed from NCM wells groundwater by the electrocoagulation (EC) technique. Laboratory-scale arsenic electroremoval experiments were carried out at continuous flow rates between 0.25 and 1.00 L min−1using current densities of 5, 10, and 20 A m−2. Experiments were performed under galvanostatic conditions during 5 min, at constant temperature and pH. The response surface methodology (RSM) was used for the optimization of the processing variables (flow rate and current density), response modeling, and predictions. The highest arsenic removal efficiency from underground water (99%) was achieved at low flow rates (0.25 L min−1) and high current densities (20 A m−2). The response models developed explained 93.7% variability for As removal efficiency.
Highlights
Water constitutes an essential element for human life, paradoxically, it has been associated with a large number of deaths from chronic diseases. This is because in many communities around the world, in rural areas, people consume it without any previous treatment even when it contains arsenic or heavy metals, such as, lead, chromium, and cadmium [1, 2], as is classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a carcinogenic contaminant extremely aggressive for those who come into contact with it [3]
It can be concluded that the feedwater flow rate does not have a significant effect on the potential drop, which is in agreement with the results obtained by Gao et al 2005, who reported that, at low flow rates, the increase of the potential is mainly related to the amount of hydrogen gas generated, which in turn increases as the current density is increased [31]
It can be concluded from the analysis of variance for U that the interaction between the feedwater flow rate and the current density is significant since P (0.089) is higher than α (0.05)
Summary
Water constitutes an essential element for human life, paradoxically, it has been associated with a large number of deaths from chronic diseases. A large variety of electrochemical reactor designs have been studied [14]; there is no statistical analysis to evaluate systematically the simultaneous behavior of current density and volumetric flow rate in domestic reactors. This is of great importance to determine the influence of these processing parameters on the optimum. Based on the foregoing, the main objective of the present investigation is to study systematically the effect of the processing variables, such as current density (i) and feedwater flow rate (Q), on the total cell potential (U), EC treatment time (t), and energy consumption (E) when processing natural groundwater extracted from Mexico’s Laguna Region ( known as The Comarca Lagunera), located in Torreon, Coahuila, Mexico. An analysis of energy consumption by the electrocoagulation process based on the processing parameters mentioned above is presented
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