Using electric flocculation to treat domestic laundry wastewater with different types of detergents

Abstract

Laundry wastewater contains a large number of surfactants, suspended solids and other pollutants, and the COD value is high. If the wastewater is discharged into the water without harmless treatment, it will cause serious environmental pollution. The electrocoagulation process was selected as a promising environmentally friendly technology for treating domestic laundry wastewater. In this paper, the contribution of the liquid and powder detergents to the composition of domestic laundry wastewater was investigated. Combination of stainless steel and aluminum anode electrodes were compared. The effect of electrolysis time and current density on the removal of COD, LAS and turbidity of liquid detergent and powder detergent laundry wastewater were evaluated. The experimental results showed the electrocoagulation process has significant removal. It was found that the electrolysis time in 25 minute, current density in 5 mA/cm2 had optimum efficiency when considering efficient removal and economic energy consumption. For Liquid detergent laundry wastewater, COD, LAS and turbidity removal rates were 84%, 93% and 96%. For powder detergent laundry wastewater, COD, LAS and turbidity removal efficiency were 80%, 83% and 91%, respectively. Energy consumption in the optimum conditions for liquid detergent and powder detergent laundry wastewater by electrocoagulation were 7.324KWh/m, 3.642KWh/m, respectively, while using combination of stainless steel and aluminum anode electrodes equals 1 to 1.