Investigation of Electrocoagulation Process Efficiency for Removing Effluent Pollution Caused by Drilling of Oil Rigs

Ale-Tayeb, Seyed Mehdi; Derikvand, Ehsan; Solimani Babarsad, Mohsen; Razaz, Majid; Eslami, Hossein

doi:10.22102/jaehr.2022.336159.1281

Investigation of Electrocoagulation Process Efficiency for Removing Effluent Pollution Caused by Drilling of Oil Rigs

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Department of Water Science, Shoushtar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shoushtar, Iran.

² Department of Water Sciences, Water Science and Environmental Research Center, Shoushtar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shoushtar, Iran.

10.22102/jaehr.2022.336159.1281

Abstract

The performance of the electrocoagulation (EC) in the removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total organic carbon (TOC), total suspended solids (TSS) and turbidity from drilling of oil rigs has been investigated in the present study. An experimental study was performed on a pilot scale in EC reactor provided from a cylindrical glass cell with height of 30 cm and an inner diameter 5 cm, a pair of aluminum and iron electrodes, a power supply, an aeration system. Samples of wastewater were collected from vicinity of a drilling oil rigs in Khuzestan. The effect of current density, operation time and pH parameters on removal efficiency of COD, TOC, TSS and turbidity were determined and finally, the optimal values of parameters to remove the pollutants and amount of energy consumption were determined. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) for effects of current density, operation time and pH values on the removal efficiency of pollutants were significant statistically at the 0.01. The optimum values of pH, current density and operation time for the removal of the all studied parameters were obtained 7, 20 mA/cm2 and 60 min, respectively and the removal efficiency of COD, TOC, TSS and turbidity under optimum condition was obtained as 72,79,67 and63%, respectively. Also, the consumption of energy was estimated to be 8.4 KWh/m3. The results indicated that the electrocoagulation process is a cost-effective method in removing pollutants caused by drilling of oil rigs and its efficiency can be improved by applying optimal conditions such as current density and pH.

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