Studies on various mode of electrochemical reactor operation for the treatment of distillery effluent

The performance of different electrochemical reactor configurations of batch, batch with recirculation and single pass were investigated based on the COD removal, current efficiency and power consumption for the treatment of distillery effluent. The effect of various operating parameters such as current density, electrolysis time, supporting electrolyte concentration and recirculation flow rate on the oxidation of pollutant has been studied. The removal of COD was found to have increased with increase in current density and electrolyte concentration in the batch electrochemical reactor. The maximum percentage COD removal was found to be 83.2% with an energy consumption of 9.77 kWh/kg of COD. For the single-pass operation 52.94% COD removal with an energy consumption of 44.76 kWh/kg of COD has been observed. Continuous systems were found to be better than batch systems in terms of energy utilization with comparable COD removal and it was better to treat huge volume of the effluent. The single-pass operation shows less completion of the process due to the lower residence time. The kinetics of electrochemical reaction of various modes of operations has also been studied. The dispersed plug flow model value was compared with experimental value.