Pectin and SDS as auxiliary flocculants for complementary treatment of textile wastewater by electrocoagulation

Textile wastewaters currently remain as one of the major sources of environmental pollution. In addition to the presence of several recalcitrant species, the volume of the effluent to be treated is usually quite high, due to the excessive consumption of water in this kind of processing. To avoid all the negative impacts associated with the discharge of these untreated effluents, effective remediation techniques should be applied. Although there are currently several methods available, due to complexity and volume of the wastewater, combined technologies can provide better efficiency, lower cost and less time consumption. In this work, electrocoagulation (EC) combined with the conventional flocculation process was studied for the removal of methylene blue dye (MB) in aqueous medium. Under specific EC conditions (4 pairs of electrodes, 2.5 cm spacing, electrolysis time of 203 min, pHinitial 4, 32 V, 1.5 A) it was possible to remove 63% of the dye. Combining EC with conventional flocculation, a notable reduction in electrolysis-required time (203 to 60 min), dye (99.8%), color (100%) and turbidity (99.2%) was observed.