Effect of operational parameters on the decolorization of CI Reactive Blue 19 in aqueous solution by ozone-enhanced electrocoagulation

The aim of this paper was to investigate the efficiency of the ozone-enhanced electrocoagulation (EC) process in the decolorization. of C.I. Reactive Blue 19 in water using iron electrodes. We determined the effects of various operating parameters such as initial pH, initial dye concentration, current density, salt concentration, temperature, ozone flow rate, and distance between electrodes on decolorization efficiency in a laboratory-scale reactor. Increasing the initial dye concentration decreased the decolorization efficiency, whereas increasing the distance between electrodes increased it. The other operating factors had both positive and negative effects. With an initial pH of 10.0, an initial dye concentration of 100mg/L, current density of 10 mA/cm(2), salt concentration of 3000 mg/L, temperature of 30 degrees C, ozone flow rate of 20 mL/min, and distance between electrodes of 3 cm, over 96% of the color was removed after 10 min. As a consequence, removal of total organic carbon (TOC) was over 80%. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.