Parametric study of electro-Fenton treatment for real textile wastewater, disposal study and its cost analysis

Abstract

Treatment of real textile wastewater by electro-Fenton method was investigated using Ti/RuO2 electrodes. The performance of the treatment process was evaluated in terms of %chemical oxidation demand removal; %color removal; and energy consumed, at three electro-Fenton process parameters: current, electrolysis time and ferrous sulfate concentration. To determine the optimum operating conditions, multiple responses optimization based on Box–Behnken design with desirability function was used. The optimum value of parameters were found to be current= 0.32 A, time = 90 min and ferrous sulfate concentration = 0.53 mM. Box–Behnken design suggested the %chemical oxidation demand removal; %color removal; and energy consumed were 100%, 90.30% and 1.27 Wh, respectively at optimized process parameters. The predicted performance parameters agree well with the experimental data. Second-order kinetic model was fitted to the experimental data, at optimum conditions. GC–MS analysis confirmed that dye components were totally eliminated after electro-Fenton treatment of textile effluent. To determined the toxicity of the treated textile effluent bioassay analysis was performed. It was identified that the generated by-products were non-toxic in nature. The total cost to treat the 1 m3 of real textile wastewater by electro-Fenton at optimum conditions was $ 3.13.