Treatment of cutting-oily wastewater by electrocoagulation-flotation (ECF) process: Modeling approach

Abstract

This work aims to investigate the oily wastewater treatment by the electrocoagulation-flotation (ECF) and propose a mathematical model for the efficiency prediction. Cutting oil was used to prepare the synthetic oily wastewater with submicron droplet sizes. The chemical coagulation by aluminium sulfate was firstly tested following by the electrocoagulation-flotation with aluminium electrodes. Both processes gave the effective treatment performance with the efficiencies higher than 90%. However, the ECF consumed less aluminium dosage as well as produced less sludge, which were its advantage on the chemical coagulation. The performance of the ECF was found to be affected by the current density, oil concentration, and reaction time according to the analysis by the design of experiment (DOE). Finally, the prediction model was proposed by two approaches, including linear and logarithm function. The latter model gave more accuracy prediction results in terms of treatment efficiency and duration in the lag and stable stages. Keywords: Chemical coagulation, Cutting oily wastewater, Design of experiment (DOE), Electrocoagulation-flotation, Prediction model