Eighteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

Textile wastewater removal requires a detailed study of numerous processing steps. The effectiveness of the electrocoagulation process used to remove a dye from wastewater was evaluated in this study. The effect of initial pH, current density, initial dye concentration, electrolyte concentration, inter-electrode distance, stirring speed, and temperature on the treatment efficiency of the N-2RBL Nylosan Red (NR) dye was investigated. Experimental conditions resulting in more than 98% dye colour removal from a 200 μM dye solution at 303 K were obtained at pH 2.5 with a current density of 13.76 mA/cm2, electrolyte concentration of 4 g/L, electrolysis time of 8 min, inter-electrode distance of 2.5 cm, and stirring speed of 275 rpm. Measurements show that about 57.6 mg/L COD remained in the treated water, corresponding to an acceptable concentration for organic dyes to be discharged in urban sewage or water bodies. The total cost of NR dye treatment was estimated to be: 0.113 USD/m3. This study shows the feasibility of using simple electrocoagulation for textile dye removal.