Elimination of Phenol and Color from Pulping Black Liquor Using Electrocoagulation Process

There are many non-wood lignocelluloses resources such as wheat, rice straw and other agriculture by- products with appropriate feature for pulp production in Iran. The most major deterrent to their use is presence of pulping black liquor that due to lignin of lignocelluloses solution contains significant amounts of color and phenol compounds. The aim of this paper was investigation of the ability to remove phenol and color as the most important organic pollutants from back liquor of agri-based pulping process using electrocoagulation method. In the electrocoagulation process aluminium electrode was used and cell potential and current intensity were adjusted on 16 V and 1700 mA respectively. The effect of various treatment time (10, 25, 40, 55, 70 min) and initial pH (3, 5, 7, 9, 10/5) of black liquor were investigated.The results showed that maximum of decrease obtained at pH 5 that has led to a remove capacity 78% of phenol and 98% of color in treatment time 70 min. electrocoagulation method can be used for black liquor treatment because of simple, effective and its low investment cost compared to other technologies.