COD Removal of Rhodamine B from Aqueous Solution by Electrochemical Treatment

Abstract

Abstract This study elucidates the COD removal of dye (Rhodamine B) through electrochemical reaction. Effects of current density (7.2 to 43.3 mA/cm 2 ), electrolyte type (NaCl, KCl, Na 2 SO 4 , HCl), electrolyte concentration (0.5 to 2.0 g/L), air flow rate (0 to 4 L/min) and pH (3 to 11) on the COD removal of Rhodamine B were investigated. The observed results showed that the increase of pH decrease the COD removal efficiency. Whereas, the increase of current density, NaCl concentration and air flow rate caused the increase of the COD removal of Rhodamine B. Key Words : COD removal, Electrochemical treatment, Rhodamine B, Ru-Sn-Sb electrode 1) 1. Introduction Textile industry produce considerable water pollution problem by discharging effluents. The effluent of textile industry process contains various types of pollutants such as dyes, detergents, surfactants and suspended solids (Robert et al., 2007). The effluent in textile industry has often been discharged over the discharge limit when it is treated only by the conventional treatment process such as the connected chemical and biological process, because the wastewater in textile industry has many recalcitrant materials. Therefore, the research for the advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) such as electron beam, Fenton oxidation, ozone oxidation, photo-catalytic and electrochemical processes is needed for the stable treatment of textile industry wastewater. Especially, the electrochemical oxidation process