Treatment of textile wastewaters by electrocoagulation employing Fe-Al composite electrode

In the present study, electrocoagulation process employing Fe-Al composite electrode was applied for treatment of different types of textile wastewaters. Effect of major operating parameters such as pH, reaction time, current density, voltage and inter-electrode distance were investigated for chemical oxygen demand (COD) and colour removal efficiency. The process was found promising and produced more than 90% COD and colour removal efficiency at optimised operating conditions of pH 8, reaction time 80 min, current density 20 A/m(2) with an inter-electrode distance of 3 cm. Robustness of the process was investigated on real and anaerobically pre-treated textile wastewater. For real textile effluents, the process produced approximately 99% colour removal efficiency, creating virtually colourless solution even at a lesser reaction time of 60 min. Electrocoagulation effectively detoxified the anaerobically pre-treated textile wastewater by eliminating 78% of aromatic amines within a reaction time of 180 min.