Investigation of different electrode connections in electrocoagulation of textile wastewater treatment

Abstract

This paper presents the results of the treatment of a real textile wastewater by electrocoagulation (EC) process. The textile effluent used in the experiments was obtained from a textile industry in Malatya/Turkey. The effluent was wastewater taken from dying process of the industry. Aluminum electrodes were connected to an EC reactor in three different types: monopolar-parallel (MP-P), monopolar-serial (MP-S), and bipolar-parallel (BP-P). Color and turbidity removals were selected as performance criteria. Moreover, the financial cost of the total treatment has been considered as important as removal efficiencies. Electrical and sacrificial electrode costs have been used in the calculation of the total cost. The results show that MP-P mode is the most cost effective for both electrode connection types. All connection types show similar results in reducing color and turbidity, MP-P is preferred as a low cost treatment. In addition, iron and aluminum electrode materials have been investigated in the MP-P EC reactor. The results show that, according to electrical and sacrificial electrode costs, iron is superior to aluminum but aluminum electrode leads to high turbidity, color and COD removal efficiencies.