Al Recovery and Reuse for Wastewater Treatment

Electrocoagulation is currently an emerging technology presented as an alternative for wastewater treatment, offering great potential in the removal of many different contaminants in wastewater from different sources [1].

In this work Tetra Pak packages were used to obtain Al electrodes. Al disc were made with 1,250 grams of aluminum recovered at a pressure of 6 tons for 2 minutes and these were used as electrodes for the electrocoagulation process

 Electrocoagulation was performed at a current of 7.5A for 30 minutes at initial pH of 8. Up to 80 % removal of color and COD 47.97 % was observed when commercial aluminum electrodes and 77.81 % are used in color and COD of 47.57 % when the recovered aluminum electrodes were used (see Fig. 1). Therefore we can use the recovered aluminum electrodes as an alternative for the treatment of wastewater.

[1]	M. Mechelhoff, G. H. Kelsall y N. J. Graham, «Electrochemical behavior of aluminium in electrocoagulation processes,» Chemical Engineering Science, vol. 95, pp. 301-312, 2013.