Investigation of experimental parameters and It‘s optimization on iron plate electrodes for the removal of phosphates by electrocoagulation process using Box–Behnken design

Abstract

Phosphorus must be removed from wastewater because it significantly contributes to eutrophication of water bodies. Chemical precipitation, is the primary method used to remove phosphates during the treatment of wastewaterwhich is typically costly and has a substantial environmental impact. The goal of this study was to determine how well iron plate electrodesare usedto remove phosphate from wastewater. Investigations into electrocoagulation (EC) treatment processes has gained interest due to its ability to remove a variety of contaminates, such as heavy metals, organic matter etc. To investigate the effects of the various operating parameters, such as electrolysis time, voltage, pH, NaCl concentration and initial concentration of phosphates has been studied for the removal of phosphate by EC process using iron electrodes. The optimum parameters observed to be electrolysis time (25 min), Voltage (10 V), pH (7), NaCl Concentration (2.0 g/lt) and initial concentration of phosphates (20 mg/L) gives the highest removal of phosphate obtained is 93.94% at 303 k. Kinetic, isothermal and thermodynamic studies has been studied and obtained best results. Characterization using SEM and FTIR analysis has been done for the iron plate electrodes obtained before and after EC process. Using the experimental data, the predicted data is been analyzed by Box-Behnken design and found to be best fitted.