A study on influential factors of high-phosphorus wastewater treated by electrocoagulation–ultrasound

A combined treatment of electrocoagulation and ultrasound was proposed to solve some problems which exist in the phosphorus removal processes in fine chemical industry. The intermittently discharged wastewater has the features of high initial phosphorus concentration and wide initial pH variation. The electrocoagulation–ultrasound effective performance for the removal of phosphorus was investigated. The results obtained from synthetic wastewater showed that the total phosphorus (TP) decreased from 86 to about 0.4 mg/L, and the removal efficiency reached about 99.6 %, when ultrasound was applied to the electrocoagulation cell under the optimum working conditions in 10 min. Comparatively, the TP removal efficiency of electrocoagulation group was 81.3 % and the ultrasound group has almost no change. Therefore, we can conclude that the electrocoagulation and ultrasound synergistic effect can effectively degrade high-phosphorus wastewater. We have discussed the impact of various parameters on the electrocoagulation–ultrasound based on the phosphorus removal efficiency. The results obtained from synthetic wastewater showed that the optimum working pH was found to be 6, allowing the effluent to be met the emission standards without pH adjustment. An increased current enhanced the speed of treatment significance, but higher current (>40 mA/cm²) enhanced ultrasonic cavitation effect causing flocculation ineffective. In addition, it was found that the optimum ultrasonic power was 4 W/cm² and the frequency was 20 kHz. The best ultrasound intervention and ultrasonic irradiation time were processed with electrocoagulation simultaneously. The results indicated that the electrocoagulation–ultrasound could be utilized as an attractive technique for removal of phosphate in the real wastewater.