Studying the effect of reactor design on the electrocoagulation treatment performance of oily wastewater

Muhammad Aiyd Jasim; Forat Yasir AlJaberi; Ali Dawood Salman; Saja Mohsen Alardhi; Phuoc-Cuong Le; Gvendolin Kulcsár; Miklós Jakab

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e17794

Studying the effect of reactor design on the electrocoagulation treatment performance of oily wastewater

Heliyon. 2023 Jul 4;9(7):e17794. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e17794. eCollection 2023 Jul.

Authors

Muhammad Aiyd Jasim¹, Forat Yasir AlJaberi², Ali Dawood Salman^{3

4}, Saja Mohsen Alardhi⁵, Phuoc-Cuong Le⁶, Gvendolin Kulcsár³, Miklós Jakab⁷

Affiliations

¹ Samawa Refinery Department, Board of Production, Midland Refineries Company, Ministry of Oil, Al-Muthanna, Iraq.
² Chemical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Al-Muthanna University, Al-Muthanna, Iraq.
³ Sustainability Solutions Research Lab, University of Pannonia, Veszprém, Hungary.
⁴ Department of Chemical and Petroleum Refining Engineering, College of Oil and Gas Engineering, Basra University for Oil and Gas, Basra, Iraq.
⁵ Nanotechnology and Advanced Material Research Center, University of Technology, Iraq.
⁶ The University of Danang-University of Science and Technology, Danang, 550000, Viet Nam.
⁷ Department of Materials Engineering, University of Pannonia, 8201, Veszprém, Hungary.

Abstract

Several conventional methods are employed to remove numerous pollutants from oily wastewater discharged from oil-field activities. The purpose of this study is to use a new design of an electrocoagulation reactor (ECR) to treat oily wastewater effluents from the Al-Muthanna petroleum plant to minimize a Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) to levels suitable for employment. In a continuous ECR, a One-Sided-Finned cathode tube (1SF) made of aluminum was inserted between a pair of aluminum-cylindrical anodes. The effects of the electrolysis period (4-60 min), current density (0.63-5.0 mA/cm²), and flow rate (50-150 ml/min) on Final TDS value were investigated. The increment of flow rate causes the final TDS value to be increased, while the extending of the electrolysis process and the raise in current density reduces it. The final TDS was 1842.54 mg/l (reduce by 307.46 mg/l) at optimum values of 1-h electrolysis, 5 mA/cm² current density, and 50 ml/min flow rate, with an inner anode consumption of 0.13 g and an outer anode consumption of 0.43 g. Regression models with a p-value of 0.001 and F-value of 27.01 noted that the selected model components were important, and the estimated model is considered prominent. Furthermore, the regression coefficient (R² = 97.99%) for the final TDS response revealed that the model fit the data well. This study confirmed the ability of the new electrocoagulation reactor to treat petroleum wastewater under significant conditions which overcomes the drawbacks of the conventional designs of electrocoagulation reactors.

Keywords: Electrocoagulation reactor; Finned-cylinder cathode; Optimization; Petroleum wastewater; Total dissolved solid.