Response surface modelling and optimization of treatment of meat industry wastewater using electrochemical treatment method

In this present study, electrochemical (EC) treatment was used to treat meat industry wastewater. Effects of EC process variables such as pH, electrolysis time, current density and electrolyte dose on the removal efficiency of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and colour were examined. Four factors three level Box-Behnken response surface design (BBD) coupled with response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to optimize the EC process variables. Second order polynomial models were developed for the responses and three dimentional (3D) response surface plots were used to study the interactive effects of the process variables on the EC treatment efficiency. The experimental results showed that, EC effectively reduced the COD (92%) and colour (98%) of the meat industry wastewater under the optimum conditions such as pH of 7, electrolysis time of 45 min, current density of 35 mA/cm(2) and electrolyte dose of 1.4 g/L, respectively. The operating cost of the treatment process under the optimum conditions is found to be 1.6 $/m(3). (C) 2014 Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.