Decolorization of reactive blue 19 from aqueous solutions by electrocoagulation process

Industrial wastewater contains several harmful chemicals, such as textile dyes, that are toxic to human and biological life. Accordingly, the wastewater from textile industry must be treated to minimize hazardous effects, including carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, coloring agent prior to disposal. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of electrocoagulation (EC) process for reactive blue 19 dye removal from aqueous solutions.
In the current experimental study the electrocoagulation process was employed to remove reactive blue dye from aqueous solution using laboratory scale batch reactor. The electrodes were positioned vertically and parallel to each other. Two iron and two aluminum electrodes were used as anode and cathode, respectively. Different operating parameters, including current density (0.2, 0.5, 1.3, 2.6, 5.2 mA/cm2), initial pH (3, 5, 7, 9, 11), initial dye concentration (10, 20, 30, 50, 100, 200 mg/l), and reaction time (10, 20, 30, 60 min), were tested with the synthetic wastewater in order to determine the optimal parameters.
The best-operating conditions were achieved at the current density of 0.5 mA/cm2, initial pH of 3, and the dye concentration of 30 mg/l. The optimum parameters at the batch-stirred EC system led to 92.26 % and 98.93% of decolorization after 20 and 60 min of operation, respectively.
The results clearly showed that EC was an effective and operational process for reactive blue 19 removals.