ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Operating Cost Analysis and Treatment
of Domestic Wastewater by Electrocoagulation
Using Aluminum Electrodes
Fuat Ozyonar, Bunyamin Karagozoglu
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Department of Environmental Engineering, Cumhuriyet University, 58140, Sivas, Turkey
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2011;20(1):173-179
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ABSTRACT
In this study, treatment of domestic wastewater (DWW) by electrocoagulation (EC) was investigated.
The samples were supplied from the Sivas domestic wastewater pretreatment plant. The experimental studies
were conducted to determine the optimum operating conditions such as electrode type, initial pH, current density,
and EC time. Aluminum and iron electrodes were used, and aluminum electrodes were preferred to iron
since it had a higher removal rate of COD, turbidity, and phosphate than the iron electrodes. At the end of these
studies, the optimum operating conditions were found for original pH (7.8), 100 A/m2, and 10 min EC time
and obtained removal efficiencies of COD, turbidity, and phosphorus (72%, 98%, and 98%), respectively.
Besides the operating costs investigated in the present study were the energy cost of EC and the material cost
because of the consumption of aluminum electrodes. Operating costs varied from 0.03 to 1.67 $/m3 and 0.44
to 3.85 $/m3 wastewater treatment at 10-150 A/m2 and 5-40 min, respectively.