Treatment of Traditional Cloth Wastewater by Electrocoagulation Using Aluminum Electrodes

The existence of the textile industry in Indonesia is not only included in the category of large and medium scale industries, but also in small-scale and some even in the household (home industry). This led to the pollution caused by the textile industry, especially as a result of the presence of the textile dyeing not only occur in industrial areas but also occurs in densely populated settlements. To overcome the problem of environmental pollution that occurs, it needs treatment of the textile wastewater. Treatment of traditional cloth wastewater by electrocoagulation using aluminum electrode material has been investigated in this paper. The effect of relevant wastewater characteristics such as pH and conductivity, and important process variables such as applied voltage and operating time on the chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD), turbidity, total suspended solid (TSS) and total dissolved solid (TDS). The processing time is used 60, 75, 90, 105, 120 minutes and for the variation of the applied voltage is 6 V, 12 V, 18 V, and 24 V. The best conditions and the effectiveness of electrocoagulation for each parameter varies with the voltage is in the range between 6 V– 18 V with the processing time between 90-120 minutes. The effectiveness of electrocoagulation method to decrease the turbidity value 99.634%; TSS 49.679%; TDS 17.243%; BOD 91.778%; COD 97.260% and to decrease the conductivity value of 23.631% and the increase in pH from 6.34 to 7.79