Economic valuation and effectiveness of utilizing electrocoagulation system in reducing chemical oxygen demand of textile industry wastewater

Abstract

Industrial activities vary greatly. The textile industry processes produce solid and liquid waste. The liquid waste comes from the process of reviewing threads, removing lubricants from synthetic fibers before weaving, and from the dyeing process. The purpose of this research is to determine the economic valuation and effectiveness of utilizing an electrocoagulation system in reducing Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) of the textile industry wastewater. This research is a kind of an experimental study involving the pretest and posttest without control design. The research strategy consisted in 9 volt voltage and 5A electric current density with a 3 cm electrode plate distance. The container used in electrocoagulation process was made of plastic with the dimensions of 48.5×27.5×31 cm. The sampling technique was grab sampling with 3 treatments and 6 repetitions. The sample size was 45 liters. The results of this research indicate that the electrocoagulation method can reduce the level of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) in the textile production wastewater. The COD level before treatment was 221.5 mg/l, after electrocoagulation with 8 electrode plates dropped to 23.0-41.0 mg/l (85.26% decrease). The economic effectiveness and efficiency of the use of electrocoagulation compared to using conventional method in reducing COD level is only Rp 47.59/liter, while the conventional method reaches Rp 117.089/liter.