Effects of Cl-based chemical coagulants on electrochemical oxidation of textile wastewater

As a supporting electrolyte and the source of chloride reactant, NaCl is generally added for the electrochemical oxidation process. In this study, Cl-based chemical coagulation was employed as the pretreatment step for the preremoval of suspended and colloidal solids which impede electrochemical oxidation. It was adopted for the purpose of providing the source of the chloride reactant for the electrochemical oxidation. It was ultimately intended to omit the artificial addition of electrolyte solution and to decrease the pollutant loading efficiently on the post electrochemical oxidation process in order to improve the performance of organics removal. PAC and FeCl₃, Cl-based chemical coagulants, were successfully employed as the pretreatment step of electrochemical oxidation. PAC and FeCl₃, were able to achieve sufficient removal efficiency of organics as well as to exclude the artificial addition of a supporting electrolyte and the source of a chloride reactant.