Abstract
The aim of this study is to evaluate the potential use of electrocoagulation in the treatment of carbide slurry, a wastewater generated during the production of acetylene, and in the capture of carbon dioxide. An electrochemical batch reactor was used to carry out several experiments at different current densities, ranging between 140-290 A/m2. Pure air and a mixture of 10% of carbon dioxide in air were injected into the reactor system to ensure good mixing and solution homogeneity. Samples were collected from the treated effluent and analyzed for Total Hardness (TH), Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD). Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was conducted to design a matrix of experiments to optimize the conditions for the treatment process and determine the optimum response in terms of water treatment and CO2 capture efficiency. For the pure air system, the overall optimum conditions were found to be 12, 27.5 and 284 A/m2 as pH, temperature and current density, respectively. The percent reduction efficiencies were 47.5, 47.8 and 71.4% for COD, TH and TDS, respectively. For the air-CO2 system, the overall optimum conditions were 12, 35 and 213.5 A/m2 for pH, temperature and current density, respectively; the reduction efficiencies were 42, 75 and 74% for COD, TH and TDS, respectively.
Highlights
Many countries, especially in the Middle East are facing water scarcity issues due to the rapid growth of population as well as the significant industrial developments in recent years
The residuals analysis showed that there was no evidence of outliers as all the residuals fell within the range of (-2 to +2) and (-3 to +3) for Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and Total Hardness (TH) % reduction, respectively
They were randomly distributed around zero, which shows a high degree of correlation between the observed and predicted values in CA and EA systems for COD and TH % reduction, respectively, as depicted in Fig. 2 and 3
Summary
Especially in the Middle East are facing water scarcity issues due to the rapid growth of population as well as the significant industrial developments in recent years. (EIGCO) using the carbide process in their Acetylene Plant in Dubai. The company produces an average of 2370 kg/d of acetylene, while utilizing about 5960 kg/d of calcium carbide in a specially designed reaction chamber, according to Equation 1: CaC2 + → C2 H2 Ca (OH ) 2 (1). Electrocoagulation (EC) refers to the destabilization of solids in an aqueous medium via applying an electric field to generate in-situ coagulants by electrolytic oxidation of sacrificial anode material. The potential use of electrocoagulation (electrochemical) process for industrial wastewater treatment was worth investigating on the physical and chemical parameters such as Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Total Hardness (TH), Total Dissolved Solid (TDS) (Hasan et al, 2013)
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