The laterite hydrometallurgy wastewater treatment using electrocoagulation method

Wastewater of the laterite hydrometallurgy process which still contains nickel more than 0.25 % and other metals. One method which able to treat wastewater is the electrocoagulation process. In this work, the electrocoagulation process using batch recycle methods has been successfully coagulated nickel and other metals from the wastewater of the laterite hydrometallurgy process. In this work, a tubular aluminum electrode was used in the electrocoagulation reactor. Sodium hydroxide is used to increase the pH of waste. Taguchi design of experiment has been used to analyze and optimize the electrocoagulation process using batch recycle methods. Taguchi analysis results show that the optimum conditions are at 21 of voltage, 5 of pH, 5 hours of time operation, and 0.53 liters/minute of flow rate.