Treatment of Tannery Effluent Using Combined Electrocoagulation and Adsorbent of Powdered Marble

Abstract

This paper discusses the ability to remove chromium and COD from a real chrome tanning wastewater by use of Electrocoagulation (EC) coupled with adsorption using Powdered Marble (PM) added to a batch stirred EC cell with a pair of duralumin electrodes. The effects of current density, adsorbent dose and contact time were studied. In comparison to the conventional EC process, the coupling of electrocoagulation and adsorption using powdered marble showed that the addition of an appropriate powdered marble improved the removal of Cr(III) and COD using lower current densities and a short contact time. Nearly 99% of Cr(III) and COD were removed from tanning effluent with an initial chromium concentration of 3.21 g/L and COD of 3.75 g/L. the results obtained showed better performance using combined electrocoagulation and adsorbent of powdered marble compared to the simple EC.