Industrial wastewater treatment using batch recirculation electrocoagulation (BRE) process: Studies on operating parameters

Abstract

The environmental industry has demonstrated an increasing interest in employing electrocoagulation (EC) process to treat industrial wastewater/effluent for recycling/drinking purposes. An iron (Fe)/aluminum (Al) plate-based batch recirculation electrocoagulation technology for wastewater treatment in the distillery industry is discussed in this work. The impact of different operational parameters, including COD, wastewater pH, current, inter-electrode spacing, combination of electrodes, recirculation flow rate, concentration of electrolytes, and treatment duration on % color, % COD reduction efficiency, and energy consumption was examined. The experimental outcomes demonstrated that, the color removal was 100 %, COD removal was 99.90 %, and energy consumption was 7.73 kWh m−3 for COD of 3600 mg L−1, current of 0.56 Amp, combination of electrodes of Fe/Fe, inter-electrode spacing of 1 cm, wastewater pH of 7, flow rate of 15 L h−1, concentration of electrolytes of 5 g L−1, and treatment time of 180 min, respectively. It was found that, a longer treatment period, higher electrolyte concentrations and current, lower COD concentrations and recirculation flow rates, Fe/Fe electrode pairings, a pH of 7, and a smaller inter-electrode spacing all contributed to increased % COD reduction efficiency. The quantity of solid sludge formed were studied with the help of operational parameters, and the results were reported. Under the optimized process conditions, the wastewater treated can be fully recovered as clean water. As a consequence of this, the results of the experiments have shown that the batch recirculation electrocoagulation process has the potential to be a more promising solution to the problem of eliminating contaminants from wastewater and industrial effluent.