Electrochemical Treatment of Effluent from Small-Scale Dyeing Unit

Electrochemical treatment of small-scale dyeing unit effluent containing Reactive Yellow 86, Indanthrene Blue RS, Basic GR 4 and Reactive Yellow 145 dyes was carried out with aluminium electrodes in batch mode of operation. The effluent was characterized for various parameters. The experiments were performed for 120 min, keeping the inter-electrode distance at 3 cm with a current density of 0.0625 A/cm(2); the colour removal efficiency was determined for each of the four dyes. A colour removal efficiency of >97% was obtained for each of the dyes for an electrolysis time of 120 min. Further experiments were performed using aluminium sulphate as chemical coagulant to compare the colour removal efficiencies obtained by electrocoagulation and chemical coagulation.