Excessive Turbidity Removal from Textile Effluents Using Electrocoagulation Technique

The work was conducted for improving textile effluent quality via turbidity removal by electrocoagulation (EC) using aluminum sacrificial electrode. Effluents were treated at 30 minutes and 30 volts (30min-30V) and 60 minutes and 40 volts (60min-40V) condition in a 1000 ml reactor cell with anode distance of 4 cm. Prior to EC experiment, physico-chemical parameters of effluent were measured and turbidity level was found eight times higher than the Department of Environment (DoE) standard. Turbidity removal ranged from 53 to 96.2% and 58 to 97.5% for condition one and two, respectively. Dissolved oxygen (DO) increased satisfactorily for both conditions. Total operational cost ranged from 62.50 to 70.41 taka/m3 at 30min-30V and 159.57 to 187.7 taka/m3 at 60min-40V. Moreover, sludge formation ranged from 6.73×10-4 to 8.41×10-4 kg in first condition and 1.21×10-3 to 1.5431×10-3 kg in second one. So, EC treatment was very effective and capable of elevating quality of the textile wastewater effluent in terms of turbidity to discharge into inland surface water. During EC operation it was also possible to lessen the total cost in maximum removal by changing the operating condition and 30min-30V was enough to get environmental friendly solution. Results will encourage the industry-owner to treat polluted effluents by EC.Keywords: Textile industry; ETP; Electrocoagulation; Sacrificial Electrode; Turbidity; Operational cost.© 2011 JSR Publications. ISSN: 2070-0237 (Print); 2070-0245 (Online). All rights reserved.doi:10.3329/jsr.v3i3.7533               J. Sci. Res. 3 (3), 567-578 (2011)