Electrochemical treatment of Reactive Blue 52 using zirconium, palladium and graphite electrode

Abstract

Electrochemical treatment is a new trend for the purification of textile industry wastewater which containing azo dyes. In this paper the electrochemical treatment was used for decolorization of azo dye Reactive Blue 52. The efficiency of decolorization was compared for different electrochemical systems which were all equipped with Fisher platinum electrode as anode and a different cathode (Zr, Pd, C) in sodium sulfate as supporting electrolyte. In order to find optimal conditions the influence of various voltage and pH values of initial dye solution was studied. Decolorization rate was monitored by spectrophotometer while degradation products were identified by high performance liquid chromatography-diode array detector (HPLC-DAD). Results of HPLC analysis confirmed presence of various degradation products in electrochemical systems, which indicated different mechanism of degradation. This was also confirmed by Ek–t curve. In terms of power consumption the most cost effective system was with the graphite cathode (C/Pt).