Optimization of electrocoagulation process to treat grey wastewater in batch mode using response surface methodology

Background: discharge of grey wastewater into the ecological system causes the negative impact effect onreceiving water bodies.methods: in this present study, electrocoagulation process (ec) was investigated to treat grey wastewater underdifferent operating conditions such as initial ph (4–8), current density (10–30 ma/cm2), electrode distance (4–6 cm)and electrolysis time (5–25 min) by using stainless steel (ss) anode in batch mode. four factors with five levelsbox-behnken response surface design (bbd) was employed to optimize and investigate the effect of processvariables on the responses such as total solids (ts), chemical oxygen demand (cod) and fecal coliform (fc) removal.results: the process variables showed significant effect on the electrocoagulation treatment process. the resultswere analyzed by pareto analysis of variance (anova) and second order polynomial models were developed inorder to study the electrocoagulation process statistically. the optimal operating conditions were found to be:initial ph of 7, current density of 20 ma/cm2, electrode distance of 5 cm and electrolysis time of 20 min.conclusion: these results indicated that ec process can be scale up in large scale level to treat grey wastewaterwith high removal efficiency of ts, cod and fc.