Plasma electrolysis method for reducing COD in tofu wastewater

Abstract

Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) is one of pollution parameter that have to be reduced so the wastewater may not harm the environment. Tofu wastewater is one of the organic wastewater that have high concentration of COD. The level of COD in untreated tofu wastewater outnumbered 8000 mg/L. This parameter could be lowered by plasma electrolysis that produced radical species to degrade pollutants in the wastewater. Three variations had been done in this study, such as: the addition of Fe2+ ion as a catalyst, the voltage, and the depth of anode. It was shown that addition of 60 mg/L of Fe2+ ion in plasma electrolysis could degrade COD in tofu wastewater to 73%. The effect of the voltage also had been studied. By using the voltage at 750 V could discard COD as much as 85%. The last variation that was conducted in this study is the effect of the depth of anode in plasma electrolysis. The result showed that 73% of COD in tofu wastewater could be reduced by using the depth of anode 2 cm. All of these results showed that plasma electrolysis is a potential method to degrade pollution parameter, especially COD in tofu wastewater.