Electrocoagulation Influencing Parameters Investigation on Reactive Dyes in Textile Wastewater

Abstract

Textile industry discharges lot of waste into the water body in terms of high color, dissolved organic and inorganic salt which causes serious concern to the environment. The present chapter reports experimental study on electrocoagulation (EC) process to remove color and chemical oxygen demand (COD) from a real textile waste water obtained from dyeing cotton fiber industries consisting reactive dye. A batch of experimental studies have been performed and effect of various operating parameters such as, contact time (t: 0–150 min), initial pH (pH0: 4–10), current density (j: 20–80 mA/cm2) and electrode spacing (z: 0.5–1.5 cm) on color and COD removal efficiency have been studied. The results indicate that pH of the solution significantly influences the removal efficiency in terms of COD and does not have significant effect on color removal efficiency. High current density and minimum distance between two electrodes favors the process. The scum and sludge are produced during color removal. The treatment of waste water for removal of color and COD together with proposed cost-effective method is useful for many industrial applications.