Performance of Electrocoagulation Process in Removing Cod from Various Types of Industrial Wastewater

The reuse of treated industrial wastewater can be a valuable alternative to freshwater resources especially in regions facing shortage of freshwater supply. The main objectives of this study are to determine the efficiency of COD removal from different types of industrial wastewater using the continuous-flow electrocoagulation (EC) process and to identify its optimum operational conditions. The wastewaters were taken from the petroleum, photovoltaic cell manufacturing and palm oil mill industry. Six monopolar electrodes of iron/aluminum combination were set up as a baffle at a distance of 25 mm and placed in a designated acrylic reactor with a wastewater flowrate of 100 ml/min. Several process parameters, such as voltage from 0 to 70 V and operating time from 0 to 30 min were investigated to achieve higher removal COD reduction efficiency. Average results from the experiments demonstrated that the Aluminium-Aluminium electrodes combination achieved the highest COD removal up to 99.97%, followed by Aluminium-Ferum 97.8% and Ferum-Ferum 95.97% at 25 V, 0.8 A and operating time of 30 min. In terms of power rating, Aluminium-Aluminium electrodes appeared to be the lowest 20 W with the highest removal of COD. Due to the extensive treatment capabilities of EC process in this study coupled with its simple operation, EC process can be one of the solutions for wastewater treatment in the future