PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF ELECTRO-COAGULATION SYSTEM FOR WASTEWATER TREATMENT

Abstract

In this study, the removal of some heavy metals ions such as cadmium [Cd+2], nickel [Ni+2] and lead [Pb+2] from synthetic wastewater were investigated using a lab-scale electro-coagulation [EC] system which was constructed for this purpose. Aluminum and iron were adopted as selective electrodes in order to compare the results for which is the best efficiency. Operational circumstances parameters such as pH, current density, detention time, and inner electrodes distance were tested in order to know the optimal operation values for the removal efficiency. The results showed that the optimal operation conditions for the max removal efficiencies occur at pH (7), current density (12.5 mA/cm²), inner electrode distance (1cm) for both aluminum and iron electrodes, and the detention time is (150 min) for aluminum, and (120 min) for iron electrodes. The experimental results indicate that the aluminum electrodes are better than iron electrodes.