Electrocoagulation is an electrochemical technique used to treat a high polluted
effluent whereby sacrificial anodes corrode to release active coagulant precursors into
the solution. This research focuses on the performance of EC technique to treat a high
strength wastewater textile industry located in Al-Hilla-Iraq using a batchwise mode.
Several working parameters such as current density, total suspension solid removal
percent, chemical oxygen demand removal percent, turbidity removal percent and the
operating time were studied. It was found that the application of 12mA/cm
provided
69.2%, 62.5% and 54.3% removal in turbidity, COD and TSS, respectively, while the
application of 20mA/cm
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current density provided 90.1%, 85.2% and 83.1% removal
in turbidity, COD and TSS, respectively, within 60 min. of EC treatment and with an
inter-electrode spacing of 5cm. Also it was found that the contaminants of treated
textile wastewater such as BOD, COD, TDS, TSS, turbidity, nitrates, chloride, total
hardness, sulfate, total phosphates, electrical conductivity, oil and grease and the total
phenols were within allowable limits for wastewater reuse. The loss of particles due to
electrocoagulation after treatment as a function of operation time was expressed as a
first order kinetic model and the kinetic constant for each contaminant removal was
predicted for each current density.
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