Removal of chromium (VI) and lead from synthetic solution using electrocoagulation: optimization and performance study

The presence of heavy metal like chromium and lead in potable water/wastewater can cause serious health issues. Therefore, its proper treatment is required. In this work, chromium and lead are removed from synthetic wastewater using electrocoagulation (EC) process. The investigation has been performed with solution of varying concentration at various operating conditions by changing the value of parameters such as current density (CD), pH and electrode gap (EG)with various metal electrode arrangement of Fe–Fe, Al–Al, Fe–Al, and Al–Fe. The electrode arrangement of Fe–Fe had delivered better results compared to other electrode arrangements. The maximum chromium and lead reduction of 93.5% and 96.7% was obtained with the electrode arrangement of Fe/Fe at CD of 73.44 A/m2, pH 5, and process time of 90 min. Besides this the maximum chromium removal efficiency of 55.2% and lead removal efficiency of 58.3% were obtained with Al-Al electrode arrangement at the same operating conditions as that of Fe–Fe electrode arrangement. This work had demonstrated that heavy metal could be successfully removed through electrocoagulation process.