Wastewater treatment by electrocoagulation: A comparative study using different anode materials

Abstract

This study investigated COD removal by electrocoagulation in both synthetic and real wastewater using different anode material. Experiments were conducted in a batch-scale EC cell using aluminium, iron and copper electrodes as anode and stainless-steel electrode as cathode. Effects of different parameters including pH (4, 7, and 10), time (10 to 60 min), voltage (3 to 12 V) were studied in order to evaluate the efficiency of electrocoagulation process. The initial synthetic COD concentration was 1000 mg/l. The highest COD removal efficiency of 97.7% was observed by aluminium electrode under the following conditions: pH = 7, time of 60 min, and voltage of 12 V. Moreover, it was observed that most of COD removal happened during the first 10 min (about 86%) then the removal rate decreased. For real wastewater, the highest COD removal efficiency was 91.9% which achieved by using aluminium electrode, pH =7.4, time of 60min, and voltage of 12 V. The results showed the feasibility of electrocoagulation process for the treatment of high-strength municipal wastewaters.