Cover
Vol. 25 No. 2 (2025)

Published: December 31, 2025

Pages: 91-99

Original Article

Optimization of Turbidity Removal from Domestic Wastewater by Electrocoagulation Using Aluminum Electrodes: A Design of Experiments Approach

Rawnaq Hasan Jaafar 1 Ammar Salman Dawood 1 Saad Abualhail Arab 1
1 Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Basrah, Basrah, Iraq
History
  • Received: October 29, 2025
  • Revised: December 10, 2025
  • Accepted: December 25, 2025
  • Available Online: December 31, 2025
DOI

https://doi.org/10.33971/bjes.25.2.10

Abstract

A significant quantity of pollutants are contained within domestic wastewater which creates a substantial environmental issue with a large quantity of effluent that contains high amounts of contaminants. Turbidity is a major indicator of water quality and a measure of suspended solids. The purpose of this investigation was to study the use of electrocoagulation (EC) as a method of removing turbidity from municipal wastewater using aluminum electrodes. Using a Design of Experiments (DOE) approach, specifically Response Surface Methodology (RSM), the effect of three important operating variables was studied. These were: the initial pH of the wastewater in the range from 3 to 9; the current (or amperage, ranged from 0.1 A to 1.1 A); and the time for which the wastewater was treated by the EC process (ranged from 10 minutes to 20 minutes). The initial turbidity of each of the municipal wastewaters used in the testing remained constant at 336 NTU (nephelometric turbidity units) throughout the entire investigation. The effect of a number of different experiments was made in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the EC process for removing turbidity from the municipal wastewaters, and in addition take a measure of a predictive model of turbidity removal efficiency. The main conclusion drawn from the investigation was that the EC process will be very effective for removing turbidity from municipal wastewaters, which can vary from 5% removal to total removal (as high as 97%). There appeared to be a statistical correlation between the removal efficiency and the three experimental variables: pH (r=0.4316); amperage (r=0.3714); and time of treatment (r=0.3965). The removal efficiency was highest using the variables of Run 8 whereby the pH was equal to 9, the current was held constant at 0.6 A and the treatment time was 10 minutes, resulting in a turbidity removal efficiency of 97%. The various data showed that both slightly acid (pH=6) and alkaline (pH=9) gave a markedly superior removal than acid (pH=3) for obtaining constant, high removal efficiencies (average of 90.00% and 90.33%, respectively). Also, it was determined that a current of 0.6 A provided the most optimum amperage, giving an average removal efficiency of 95.33%. In addition, it was shown that long treatment times resulted in high removal efficiency, with the most averages of removal efficiencies recorded when the time of treatment was set.

Keywords

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