95
Views
10
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Articles

Treatment of truck wash water using electrocoagulation

, , &
Pages 25991-26002 | Received 27 May 2014, Accepted 23 Feb 2016, Published online: 15 Mar 2016
 

Abstract

The scarcity of fresh water resources and the need for additional water supplies are critical in many regions of the world. Treatment of wastewater and its reuse can partially resolve this issue. Due to the increase in use and number of heavy duty vehicles for transportation purpose the wastewater generated from truck wash has been escalated during last several decades. Our results show that electrocoagulation (EC) can be an effective technique to treat truck wash water (TWW), and this treated TWW is reusable. Effects of different combination of electrodes, such as Fe–Fe, Al–Fe, and Al–Al, operating time, current density (CD), and pH inside the EC reactor were studied to optimize treatment conditions for lowering chemical oxygen demand (COD), and concentrations of some selected toxic metal ions in TWW. The best removal efficiency of 79% for COD was obtained by Fe–Fe combination after 8 min of operating time and at 2 mA/cm2 of CD. Iron, zinc, and lead concentrations were reduced below EPA maximum contaminant levels for all three types of electrode combinations. The EC-floc was characterized using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope/energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and Fourier transform-infrared spectrometer. The ionic substitution of iron by aluminum was confirmed in the isomorphs subsisted in the floc.

Acknowledgment

We are grateful to Welch foundation (V-1103), ATP (003581-0033-2003), and USDA (2004-38899-02181) for their financial support for this research. We are thankful to Kaselco, Mr Ashik Mahmud, and Mr Jaime Bazan for their support to use their facilities and instrumentation, and to Lamar University MIC and Mr Dan Rutman for generating SEM-EDS images.

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.