Abstract
Swine effluent with high organic strength need to be treated to make it suitable for applying to crop/pasture fields, or discharging to any waterways. Electrocoagulation is a relatively simpler and cheaper technique over biological and chemical treatment methods currently used to treat high-strength industrial and municipal wastewater. The performance of an electrocoagulation system mainly depends on the pH, Electrical Conductivity (EC) of the medium, Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) loading rates and catalytic activity of the electrodes used. In this research, a study was conducted to compare the pollutant removal efficiencies of three electrodes (Fe-Fe, Al-Al and Fe-Al) with three electric current levels (500, 1000 and 2000 mA) while treating swine manure effluents. The electrochemical cell consisted of two parallel rectangular plates (90×25×1.5 mm) of Iron (Fe-Fe), Aluminum (Al-Al) and Iron-Aluminum (Fe-Al, later on described as hybrid) electrodes; immersed in a beaker with 550 mL swine effluents and powered by a Direct Current (DC) supply. All studies were conducted in batches at room temperature. In general, removal efficiencies were increased with increasing current densities and electrolysis times for electrodes evaluated. Aluminum electrodes outperformed iron and hybrid (iron-aluminum electrodes) in removing Total Phosphorus (TP) at all current density levels tested. Overall, use of hybrid electrodes resulted in better COD removal. For the same treatment times (1200 s) at higher current density (21 mA cm-2), hybrid electrodes removed about 100% COD, which are about 1.9 and 1.3 times higher than those of aluminum and iron electrodes, respectively. Iron electrodes showed the highest removal efficiency (85%) for Total Organic Carbon (TOC) at 21 mA cm-2 current density and 1200 s treatment time. Overall, lower Specific Electrical Energy Consumptions (SEECs) per kg of Pollutants (TP, COD and TOC) were estimated for the aluminum electrodes than the other electrodes combination.
Highlights
Nutrients for life, phosphate rocks are limited in the world and around 80% of phosphate produced globally
The removal efficiencies of Total Phosphorus (TP), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and Total Organic Carbon (TOC) were positively correlated with increasing treatment times and three levels of current densities (5, 10 and 21 mA cm−2) and treatment times for each electrode type (Fig. 2 to 4)
This research investigated the effects of current density levels on the electrolysis of swine liquid manure with electrodes consisting of either Fe-Fe, FeAl, or Al-Al electrode materials
Summary
Nutrients for life, phosphate rocks are limited in the world and around 80% of phosphate produced globally. Due to limited phosphate supply, their environmental impact potential on waters If these nutrients from liquid manure can be removed and efforts to reduce nutrient loading, especially phosphorus, from livestock manure and runoff are ongoing. Chemical precipitation is a flexible approach and can be applied at several stages of the wastewater treatment process as required (Morse et al, 1998). This process, precipitates P-bound waste and the impact of disposing this waste to agricultural land is not well documented. Electrolysis is a modern process of wastewater treatment and studied it to treat swine liquid manure in this study
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