Removal of reactive dyes from textile industrial effluent using electrocoagulation in different parametric conditions of aluminum electrodes

Abstract

Untreated textile industrial effluent becomes a major concern for the receiving water bodies. Extensive use of azo dyes in textile industries trigger to find latest techniques for the treatment of textile wastewater. The purpose of this study was to employ the electrocoagulation process for the effective removal of dyes from textile wastewater. The optimization of parameters was performed using the Taguchi method to analyze the conditions of electrode for efficient dye removal. The effects of different parameters including synthetic dye initial concentration, initial pH, applied voltages, interelectrode distance and contact time were studied. Different electrode pairs combination with iron to iron, iron to aluminum and aluminum to aluminum were investigated. The electrode combination of aluminum to aluminum performed better in terms of dye removal. The removal efficiency of methylene blue was achieved to 82% under optimum conditions having pH of 8, 15 V voltage, 60 min contact time and 2 cm aluminum interelectrode distance. Similarly, the optimum conditions for decolorization of methyl orange was performed and achieved 81% of removal efficiency. After the optimization of electrode and parametric conditions, real textile wastewater was treated and removal efficiency of 81% was achieved. At optimal conditions (pH 7–8, 15 V, 60 min contact time, and 20 min settling time), COD, TDS, TSS, and discoloration removal efficiencies were 79%, 91%, 75%, and 86%, respectively. The result of this study indicates the significance of EC process and its future scope for integration of this technology at industrial scale.