Suitability of aluminum material on sugar industry wastewater with chemical and electrochemical treatment processes

Abstract

Aluminum is a valuable material, which can be used for water and wastewater treatment. It exists in metal as well as in salt form. The efficiency of water and wastewater treatment depends upon the technology applied to treat. Sugarcane industry is coming under those industries which have a large amount of freshwater and release large amount of effluent. The goal of this research work is to study the behavior of aluminum metal and salt for the treatment of sugar industry wastewater on chemical oxidation and electrochemical oxidation. The effect of pH, dosing, temperature and catalysis on metal and salt has been also studied with both treatment methods. The results show that maximum 90% of chemical oxygen demand and 94% of color removal can be achieved with an aluminum electrode (electrocoagulation) at optimum conditions, pH 7, current density 178 A/m2, electrode distance 20 mm, and salt solution 0.5 M NaCl. In the same way, 81% chemical oxygen demand and 85% color removal were achieved with alum for the 0.5 M lime solution, at 50 mM mass loading, 21 °C operating temperature and optimum pH of 7, respectively. The sludge generated after treatment was also analyzed with settling filtration, thermal, FTIR and SEM.