The Effect of Supporting Electrolyte Type and Concentration on the Phosphate Removal from Water by Electrocoagulation Method Using Iron Electrodes

Abstract

In this study, the effect of the type and concentration of the supporting electrolyte given to the water to increase the conductivity in the electrocoagulation process on the phosphate removal from synthetically prepared waters was investigated. In addition, experiments were carried out without electrolyte and the results were compared. The effect of support electrolyte type and concentration on phosphate removal efficiency, energy consumption and reaction rate was analyzed. Experiments have shown that electrolyte use has no significant effect on phosphate removal efficiency. However, it has been found that the addition of electrolyte reduces energy consumption and increases the removal rate. From the results obtained, it was determined that NaCl as the most suitable electrolyte type and 5 mM electrolyte was sufficient as the optimum dose. Under these conditions, for 100 mg L^-1 PO_4-P at 0.5 mA cm^-2 current density, the phosphate removal efficiency was 96.98%, the energy consumption was 1.13 kWh m^-3 and the first order reaction rate constant was 0.0593 min^-1.