Nickel removal from electroplating wastewater using electrocoagulation

Abstract

Electrocoagulation processes for reducing nickel concentration in electroplating wastewater had been carried out in laboratory scale experiments. The experiments were conducted in a 500 mL batch reactor with dual electrodes: aluminum as the anode and copper as the cathode with electroplating wastewater at pH 7 and initial nickel concentration of 10,55 ppm. Parameters of electrocoagulation process such as removal efficiency, specific energy and produced precipitate were determined and assessed under various DC voltages (5, 7.5 and 10 V) and various operation time (30, 60 and 90 min) as variable of experiment. The results show that the optimum condition of electrocoagulation process was obtained at 5 VDC and for 76.5 min.