Electro-decolorization of Reactive Red 198 from aqueous solutions using aluminum electrodes systems: modeling and optimization of operating parameters

During recent years, electrochemical (EC) techniques have been applied as an effective process to treat industrial and domestic wastewater. Thus, Reactive Red 198 dye was selected, as a model of azo dyes group, to evaluate electrocoagulation decolorization potential. In the present study, the removal model and the related optimal operating conditions were developed using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and the central composite. Regarding the design of the method (RSM) about 50 time modeling of considerable parameters were analyzed and optimized. In the variants analysis a relatively high correlation coefficient of about 0.77 was observed. p value for the dye decolorization model proved to be significant (p < 0.0001).The results related to the optimal parameters were obtained under optimal operating parameters pH = 6.45, current density 7.2 mA/cm(2), operating time 57.4 min, and distance 1.9 cm. The most and the least decolorization efficiency was 69 and 91.3%, respectively. Therefore, EC can successfully be applied to the treatment of effluents containing dyes.