Optimizing electrocoagulation process for the treatment of biodieselwastewater using response surface methodology
Orathai Chavalparit , Maneerat Ongwandee
DOI:
Received January 28, 2009,Revised April 21, 2009, Accepted , Available online
Volume 21,2009,Pages 1491-1496
- Summary
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The production of biodiesel through a transesterification method produces a large amount of wastewater that contains high levels
of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and oil and grease (O&G). Currently, flotation is the conventional primary treatment for O&G
removal prior to biological treatments. In this study, electrocoagulation (EC) was adopted to treat the biodiesel wastewater. The e ects
of initial pH, applied voltage, and reaction time on the EC process for the removal of COD, O&G, and suspended solids (SS) were
investigated using one factor at a time experiment. Furthermore, the Box-Behnken design, an experimental design for response surface
methodology (RSM), was used to create a set of 15 experimental runs needed for optimizing of the operating conditions. Quadratic
regression models with estimated coe cients were developed to describe the pollutant removals. The experimental results show that
EC could e ectively reduce COD, O&G, and SS by 55.43%, 98.42%, and 96.59%, respectively, at the optimum conditions of pH 6.06,
applied voltage 18.2 V, and reaction time 23.5 min. The experimental observations were in reasonable agreement with the modeled
values.
