Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the decolorization of Acid Red 88 AR88 using electrocoagulation and photo electrocoagulation techniques Chemical dyes have the most practical usage in different industries having an essential role in most water industries they have a high solubility in water thus water wastes contain a high level of these dyes An effective way of eliminating these dyes is electrocoagulation The effect of operational parameters such as initial dye concentration electrolysis time and electrolyte concentration was studied The electrochemical cell comprised Al as cathode and Fe as anode which were placed inside a container having a low pressure mercury lamp at the top 40 mg L-1 of dye solution was withdrawn for each experiment and after adjusting the electrode distance to 15 mm current density to 41 8 A m-2 different electrolytes at varying concentrations were added and the absorbance was measured at several reaction times The results showed that electrocoagulation was more effective than photo electro-coagulation using NaBr KBr NaCl and KClaselectrolytes and decolorization rate increased with increasing electrolyte concentration Also the coupled system with NaF electrolyte showed better decolorization rate than electrocoagulation but the decolorization rate was higher at low concentrations of electrolyte Therefore it is concluded that electrocoagulation was more effective than coupled system in most cases and type of electrolyte plays an important role since employed NaCl KCl would enhance the decolorization rate considerably