Continuous flow electrocoagulation system for the treatment of coir industry wastewater

Coir industry, a prominent industry in Kerala, uses huge amount of water and chemical reagents for its functioning. The effluent from these industries has high BOD, COD, toxic chemicals, oils and grease etc. Of the various pollutants, synthetic dyes are the most concerning. Electrocoagulation has advantages over other systems, as it doesn’t produce any secondary pollutants. In this study, a continuous flow electrocoagulation reactor is designed and operational parameters like flow rate, voltage, pH, electrolyte concentration, dye concentration and electrode orientation are optimized. The influence of these parameters are assessed by measuring colour removal efficiency (CRE) and chemical oxygen demand (COD). The optimum flow, voltage, electrolyte concentration, pH and electrode orientation were 1000 mL/hr., 8V, 1000 mg/L, 7 and parallel respectively. The optimized parameters were used for performance evaluation of the system in treating coir industry wastewater. Under these optimized conditions, colour removal efficiency, turbidity, pH, COD removal efficiency and BOD removal efficiency for the treated coir industry wastewater was found as 92.17%, 25 NTU, 8.7, 95.49%, and 92.20% respectively.