Electrocatalytic oxidative treatment of real textile wastewater in continuous reactor: Degradation pathway and disposability study

Electrocatalytic treatment of real textile wastewater was investigated in continuous electrochemical reactor using dimensionally stable Ti/RuO2 anode. Effects of various parameters such as: elapsed time, current, pH, retention time on the COD removal, color removal and specific energy consumed were evaluated. Central Composite Design under RSM was used for experimental design, data analysis, optimization, interaction analysis between the various electrochemical parameters and steady state time analysis. GC–MS and UV spectrophotometric analysis of the untreated and treated wastewater were conducted to identify the oxidized and transformed/degraded compounds during the oxidation process, and a suitable degradation mechanism was proposed. Treated wastewater may contain toxic chlorinated compounds due to mediated oxidation by various hydrolyzed chlorine species. Therefore, disposability of treated wastewater was assessed by conducting toxicity bioassay test.

The optimal set of operating parameters were found to be elapsed time = 124 min, current = 1.37 A, pH = 5.54 and retention time = 157.6 min to simultaneously achieve COD removal, color removal and specific energy consumed as 86.22%, 94.74% and 0.012 kW h, respectively. GC–MS analysis showed presence of chlorinated compounds in the treated wastewater. The toxicity bioassay test resulted acute toxicity with 100% mortality rate within one minute and one hour exposure with untreated and treated textile wastewater, respectively.