Optimal Route for Turbidity removal from Aquaculture Wastewater by Electrocoagulation-flocculation process

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate and verify the applicability of the electrocoagulation technology using iron-aluminum (Fe-Al) electrodes in the effective treatment of wastewater generated from aquaculture ponds. The wastewater was characterized before and after treatment to know the effectiveness of this treatment method. A laboratory electrocoagulator was used to investigate the effects of different parameters such as initial pH, charge time, and settling time on turbidity removal from aquaculture wastewater (AW) at initial pH of 8 and temperature of 30 0C. The electrocoagulation process was optimized using the Response Surface Methodology (RSM) through the Box-Behnken Design (BBD). A quadratic model was also generated to represent the treatment process. The optimum conditions were found to be charge time of 11.970 min, settling time of 29.994 min and current density of 2.389A which gave turbidity removal of 91.84 % at 30 0C for 500 mL of the wastewater. The correlation between the predicted value (91.84 %) and measured value (91.67 %) confirms the validity of the results predicted by the regression model. A Predictive model describing the turbidity removal efficiency in terms of process variables was derived from multiple regression analysis. The coefficient of regression (R2) value of 0.9943 and the adjusted R² of 0.9858 indicate the validity of the model equation. The RSM via BBD can be used to optimize and maximize the electrocoagulation-flocculation treatment of aquaculture wastewater.