Effects of operational parameters on the decolourisation of reactive red 195 dye from aqueous solutions by electrochemical treatment

Abstract

One of the most polluting factors in the environment is the textile industries' wastewaters since they notably have complex ingredients and occurs in large volume. Moreover its effluents are in need of advanced treatment to be able to smoothly discharge to the receiving media. This study investigated the decolourisation efficiency of electrocoagulation process using three different electrodes, aluminum, zinc and iron, in Reactive Red 195 dye removal from model solutions. Effect of major operational parameters such as current density, pH, sacrificial electrode materials and operation time was followed for percentage decolourisation efficiency. The performance of the process was found to be maximum with iron electrode for Reactive Red 195 dye, but aluminum electrode was the best one for the real textile wastewater that is the mixture of textile dyes. Decolourisation efficiency reached to 98% employing current density of 40 mA cm(-2) and iron electrode for the real effluent containing the dye, and COD was eliminated 74% employing aluminum electrode at the same current density. As a conclusion electrocoagulation was found to be efficient in treating and decolorizing the textile effluents and model solutions.