A Designed Electro-flotation Cell for Dye Removal from Wastewater

Abstract

An Electro-flotation cell was designed for industrial wastewater treatment. The affecting parameters of the Electro-flotation process such as, pH, initial dye concentration, temperature, current density, current type, ionic strength, stirring speed and number, connection and inter-distance of electrodes were investigated using a synthetic Acid Red 1 (anionic), Basic Violet 3 (cationic) and Disperse Blue 14 (nonionic) dyes. Two textile wastewater samples were employed for performance evaluation. The maximum removal for all dyes is achieved at pH 7. The AC current and the bipolar electrodes were preferred. The maximum removal was achieved with AC current density of 80 A/m2 at 5 Volts through a bipolar connection of 8 electrode with 2 cm inter-distance. The designed Electro-flotation cell could remove 91.7 – 98.9 % of constituents of textile wastewater samples. The energy consumption was 1.39 Kwh/m3 of the treated wastewater.

Keywords

• electro-flotation
• dye removal
• wastewater
• textile effluents
• cell design