Evaluation of an electrocoagulation process for the treatment of bagasse-based pulp and paper industry wastewater

Abstract

In this study, an attempt was made to investigate the efficiency of continuous electrocoagulation process (CEC) to treat bagasse-based pulp and paper industry wastewater. Different operating conditions such as initial pH (5–9), current density (15–35 mA/cm2), electrode distance (4–6 cm) and flow rate (25–55 ml/min) were varied in order to study the removal efficicency of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total suspended solids (TSS). Electrical enrgy consumption (EEC) of the process was also investigated. Four factors three level Box–Behnken response surface design (BBD) was used to evaluate the effect of process variables on CEC. From the BBD results, second-order polynomial models were developed and all the process variables have significant effect on the removal efficiencies. 3D response surface contour plots were used to study the interactive effects of the process conditions. Under the optimum operating conditions COD and TSS removal efficiencies were found to be 84 and 91% with EEC of 15.25 Wh. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 34: 411–419, 2015