Electrocoagulation for Treating Petrochemical Wastewater: The Effect of Initial pHs and Voltages
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26555/chemica.v12i3.493Keywords:
Electrocoagulation, Initial pH, Petrochemical Wastewater, VoltageAbstract
Petrochemical wastewater (PW) cannot be discharged directly due to its high chemical oxygen demand (COD), which poses environmental risks. Electrocoagulation (EC) is a promising treatment method capable of reducing COD to meet regulatory standards. This study investigates the influence of initial pH and applied voltage on COD removal during EC treatment of PW. In the first stage, the initial pH was adjusted to 12.25 (control), 9, 7, and 5 at a constant voltage of 10 V. In the second stage, voltages of 5, 10, and 15 V were applied at the previously determined optimum pH. The results showed that an initial pH of 7 produced the highest COD removal (52.96%), outperforming pH 9, 5, and 12.25. The superior performance at neutral pH was attributed to the dominant formation of Fe(OH)2 and Fe(OH)3 coagulants, which effectively destabilize and adsorb organic contaminants. Voltage variation further demonstrated that COD removals of 50.22%, 52.96%, and 55.41% were achieved at 5, 10, and 15 V, respectively, indicating higher removal with increasing voltage. However, increasing voltage also raises operational costs. Economic evaluation revealed that pH 7 and 5 V provided the most cost-effective operation, with the lowest operating cost per CODremoved (38.71 IDR/g CODremoved). Although COD removal at this condition was slightly lower than at higher voltages, the cost savings make it the preferred operating point. These findings highlight key operational parameters for optimizing EC performance and support its sustainable implementation for petrochemical wastewater treatment.
References
A. A. Elamari, A. E. Alshebani, and M. A. M. Saad, “Wastewater treatment from petrochemical industries: the concept and current technologies-a review,” Journal of Marine Science & Environmental Technologies, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 20-31, Jun 2020, doi: 10.59743/jmset.v6i1.49.
A. D. M. deMedeiros, C. J. G. d. S. Junior, J. D. P. de Amorim, I. J. B. Durval, A. F. d. S. Costa, and L. A. Sarubbo, “Oily wastewater treatment: methods, challenges, and trends,” Processes, vol. 10, no. 4, Apr 2022, doi: 10.3390/pr10040743.
S. K. Sharma, N. Thenmani, and R. Kumar, “Hybrid hydrate-based strategy for petrochemical effluent purification and sustainable water management,” Am. Chem. Soc. ES&T Water, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 1015-1028, Jan 2025, doi: 10.1021/acsestwater.4c01076.
M. E. Ahmed, A. Mydlarczyk, and A. Al-Haddad, “Efficiency limiting factors of petrochemical wastewater treatment using hybrid biological reactor,” J. Environ. Eng. Landsc. Manag., vol. 30, no. 3, Oct 2022, doi: 10.3846/jeelm.2022.17633.
S.Verma, P. Kumar, V. C. Srivastava, and U. Štangar, “Application of advanced oxidation processes (aops) for the treatment of petrochemical industry wastewater,” Advance Industrial Wastewater treatment and Reclamation of Water, pp. 103-128, Nov 2021, doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-83811-9_6.
X. Wei, M. Kazemi, S. Zhang, and F. A. Wolfe, “Petrochemical wastewater and produced water: Treatment technology and resource recovery,” Water Environ. Res., vol. 92, no. 10, pp. 1695-1700, Aug 2020, doi: 10.1002/wer.1424.
T. Paul, I. Janakiraman, K. Pakshirajan, and G. Pugazhenthi, “A review on novel and hybrid/integrated reactor configurations for the removal of recalcitrant organics from petroleum refinery wastewater” Environ. Qual. Manag., vol. 32, no. 1, Aug 2022, doi: 10.1002/tqem.21913.
M. Fedoryak, O. Boruk, S. Boruk, and I. Winkler, “Adsorption of the petrochemical pollutants released at the small vehicle-service facilities on the coal refinery sludge/pyrocarbon compositions,” Inz. Miner., vol. 1, no. 1, Dec 2021, doi: 10.29227/IM-2021-01-08.
I. Hajar, Fadarina, M. Zamhari, and S. Yuliati, “Tofu industrial wastewater treatment by electrocoagulation method,” Proc. 4th Forum Res. Sci. Technol., Jan 2021, doi: 10.2991/ahe.k.210205.008.
A. Mirshafiee, M. Nourollahi, and A. Shahriary, “Application of electro oxidation process for treating wastewater from petrochemical with mixed metal oxide electrode,” Sci. Rep., vol. 14, Jan 2024, doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-52201-5.
E. Hartati, L. Hasyyati, D. Agustian, D. Djaenuddin, D. Permana, and H. E. Putra, “Electrocoagulation process for chromium removal in leather tanning effluents,” J. Ecol. Eng., vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 1-13, doi: 10.12911/22998993/183554.
M. Apriyanti, S. Sutanto, and L.J. Kusumawardani, “Application of electrocoagulation in soy milk wastewater treatment process with variation of time and voltage,” Helium: J. Sci. Appl. Chem., vol. 3, no. 2, Dec 2023, doi: 10.33751/helium.v3i2.8923.
M. Ingelsson, N. Yasri, and E. P. L. Roberts, “Electrode passivation, faradaic efficiency, and performance enhancement strategies in electrocoagulation a review,” Water Res., vol. 187, Dec 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2020.116433.
I. Syaichurrozi, S. Sarto, W. B. Sediawan, and M. Hidayat, “Mechanistic model of electrocoagulation process for treating vinasse waste: effect of initial pH,” J. Environ.. Chem Eng., vol. 8, no. 3, Jun 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.jece.2020.103756.
S. G. Segura, M. M. S. G. Eiband, J. V. deMelo, and C. A. M. Huitle, “Electrocoagulation and advanced electrocoagulation processes: A general review about the fundamentals, emerging applications and its association with other technologies,” J. Electroanal. Chem., vol. 801, pp. 267-299, Sep 2017, doi: 10.1016/j.jelechem.2017.07.047.
I. Syaichurrozi, S. Sarto, W. B. Sediawan, and M. Hidayat, “Experiment and kinetic analysis of the effect of agitation speed on electrocoagulation process for the treatment of vinasse,” J. Water Process Eng., vol. 50, Dec 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.jwpe.2022.103144.
M. Subramaniam and S. Swathi, “Electrocoagulation technique for removing organic and inorganic pollutants (COD) from the various industrial effluents: An overview,” Environ. Eng. Res., vol. 28, no. 4, Sep 2022, doi: 10.4491/eer.2022.231.
H. A. M. Casillas, D. L. Cocke, J. A. G. Gomes, P. Morkovsky, J. R. Parga, and E. Peterson, “Electrocoagulation:cod removal mechanism,” Separation and Purification Technology, vol. 56, no. 2, pp. 204-211, Aug 2007, doi: 10.1016/j.seppur.2007.01.031.
Soeprijanto, A. D. Perdani, D. F. Nury, and L. Pudjiastuti, “Treatment of oily bilge water by electrocoagulation process using aluminum electrodes,” AIP Conf. Proc., May 2017, doi: 10.1063/1.4982345.
P. Asaithambi, R. Govindarajan, M. B. Yesuf, P. Selvakumar, and E. Alemayehu, “Investigation of direct and alternating current-electrocoagulation process for the treatment of distillery industrial effluent: Studies on operating parameters,” J. Environ. Chem. Eng., vol. 9, no. 2, Apr 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.jece.2020.104811.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Universitas Ahmad Dahlan
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
