Mechanism and Techno-Economic Analysis of the Electrochemical Process

Abstract

The textile industry utilizes numerous chemicals ranging from solvents to resins and caustic soda to bleach, having a harsh environmental impact. A large amount of colored dye in wastewater is released. Non-biodegradable heavy metals and chlorine accumulate in organs of marine and terrestrial life, leading to various diseases. So, there is an urgent need to treat textile wastewater. Up to date, techno-economic analyses of all electrochemical processes have not been reviewed for textile wastewater treatment. In this review, the focus is on the tertiary treatment methods, mainly on electrochemical treatments, i.e., electrocoagulation, electro-Fenton, electrooxidation, photoelectrochemical (PEC) process, and solar electrophoto-Fenton process (SPEF) with their mechanisms and techno-economic analyses. SPEF treatment was found to be advantageous in terms of efficiency and economic perspective as it utilizes solar energy instead of electrical energy and the cost of the PEC process can also be recovered by the generation of hydrogen.