NICKEL AND CHROMIUM REMOVAL FROM WASTEWATER BY THE APPLICATION OF ELECTROCOAGULATION USING COPPER AND ZINC ELECTRODES UNDER VARIOUS OPERATING CONDITIONS

Abstract

In this thesis, nickel and chromium removal from wastewater by the application of electrocoagulation using copper and zinc electrodes has been studied. Experiments were conducted by using synthetic water and real wastewater. It was treated at room temperature with various operating conditions. Starting from optimum pH, CD, electrode spacing and salt type at (1, 5, 10, 15, 30, 45, 60, 90) minutes during reaction time. In addition to measuring pH for synthetic and real wastewater, measuring EEC for real wastewater, comparing EC and CC and comparing batch and continuous operation modes. For the results, it was observed that copper is better than zinc in nickel removal and zinc is better than copper in chromium removal as maximum nickel removal reached 99.96% in case of copper and chromium removal reached 99.95% in case of zinc for synthetic and real wastewater. While in real combined wastewater, zinc is better than copper in nickel removal and copper is better than zinc in chromium removal as maximum nickel removal reached 99.81% in case of zinc and chromium removal reached 91.68% in case of copper. It was also observed that EC is better than chemical coagulation and the batch mode is almost the same as continuous mode. It was also noticed that COD decreased in real wastewater after application of EC.