Industrial wastewater treatment using an electrochemical technique: an optimized process

Abstract

The aim of this research was to remove the chemical oxygen demand (COD) and color from an industrial wastewater using electro-Fenton process. The effects of five important parameters including H₂O₂/Fe²⁺ molar ratio, current density, pH, H₂O₂/Petroleum refinery wastewater and reaction time on the process were carefully considered. The response surface methodology was applied to minimize the number of runs and investigate the optimum operating conditions. Forty-seven runs were carried out and the optimum conditions for COD and color removal were statistically obtained as 80.13% and 75.11% at H₂O₂/Fe²⁺ molar ratio of 4.2 for COD removal and 2.49 for color removal, current density was 60.89 mA for COD removal and 57.72 mA for color removal, pH was 3.32 for COD and 3.34 for color removal, H₂O₂/PRE was 0.05 for COD removal and 0.03 for color removal, and reaction time recorded as 62.05 min for COD removal and 63.04 min for color removal.

Keywords:

• Wastewater
• Electro-Fenton
• Optimization

Acknowledgments

The authors are very thankful to Arak University (Research Vice-Chancellery) for their kind help and support. This research was financially supported by Arak University (grant number 90/11326).