Effect of operational parameters on the decolorization of C.I. Reactive Blue 19 in aqueous solution by ozone-enhanced electrocoagulation.

The aim of this paper was to investigate the efficiency of the ozone-enhanced electrocoagulation (EC) process in the decolorization of C.I. Reactive Blue 19 in water using iron electrodes. We determined the effects of various operating parameters such as initial pH, initial dye concentration, current density, salt concentration, temperature, ozone flow rate, and distance between electrodes on decolorization efficiency in a laboratory-scale reactor. Increasing the initial dye concentration decreased the decolorization efficiency, whereas increasing the distance between electrodes increased it. The other operating factors had both positive and negative effects. With an initial pH of 10.0, an initial dye concentration of 100mg/L, current density of 10mA/cm2, salt concentration of 3000mg/L, temperature of 30 degrees C, ozone flow rate of 20mL/min, and distance between electrodes of 3cm, over 96% of the color was removed after 10min. As a consequence, removal of total organic carbon (TOC) was over 80%.