ISSN: 2277-9655 [Seyf-Laye* et al., 7(4): May, 2018] Impact Factor: 5.164 IC™ Value: 3.00 CODEN: IJESS7 http: // www.ijesrt.com © International Journal of Engineering Sciences & Research Technology [50] IJESRT INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING SCIENCES & RESEARCH TECHNOLOGY INVESTIGATION OF DIFFERENT ELECTRODES IN ELECTROCOAGULATION OF DOMESTIC WASTEWATER TREATMENT Alfa-Sika Mande Seyf-Laye 1,2,3*, Tchakala Ibrahim 2 , Dougna Akpénè Amenuvevega 2,3, Djaneye-Boundjou Gbandi 2 , Bawa L. Moctar and Chen Honghan 1 1 Beijing Key Laboratory of Water Resources & Environmental Engineering, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Beijing 100083, P.R. China 2 Water Chemistry Laboratory, Faculty of Science, University of Lome, BP. 1515, Togo 3 Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Kara, BP. 404, Togo DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1241376 ABSTRACT Electrocoagulation method with iron/iron, and Cu and Ti/IrO2 electrodes as cathode and anode were used, to treat the domestic wastewater in batch reactor. The performance of electrocoagulation (EC) process was investigated for phosphorous, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and NH ସ + −N reduction. The effects of the relevant key operating conditions such as amperage and electrolysis time were studied in order to evaluate the performance of electrodes. The result indicates that electrocoagulation is very efficient and was able to achieve phosphorous removal (99.46%), COD removal (56.11%) and NH ସ + −N (58.37%) at 0.8A in 60 min in the presence of iron electrode. The NH ସ + −N removal by Cu and Ti/IrO2 electrodes were achieved at 99.82% at 0.8A in 45 min. The results revealed that the ammonium was removed and 2.33 mg/L of nitrate was found with the weak formation of nitrite. Finally the Ti/IrO2 electrode was not affected by the process. It means that total suspended solids were removed by Fe electrode. KEYWORDS: Electrocoagulation, domestic wastewater, phosphorous, COD, NH ସ + −N. I. INTRODUCTION Water is the source of life (Saleem et al., 2011). It is essential forallbeings and living ecosystems. The quality of the water distributed to the consumer's tap depends on the water quality of the river or aquifer in which the water was taken and the treatments carried out after the levy. Evacuating organic matter in water, it affects the balance of aquatic environment through the depletion of oxygen level and impoverished the soil of nutrients. Water quality is composed of a multitude of parameters some relevant to filtration, followed by either aerobic or anaerobic microbial degradation on the surface such total suspended solid (Mameri et al., 2011) and as known the excess of phosphate and nitrogen compound from wastewater are responsible for the phenomenon of eutrophication which negatively affect the aquatic life (Bektas et al., 2004; Irdemez et al., 2006). The presence of free ammonia in wastewater can also cause several problems in the environment due to its high toxicity especially at pH higher than 8 (Reginatto et al., 2005). However, municipal wastewater is a mixture of domestic wastewater (the basic component), small amounts of industrial and storm water drain water surface infiltration and groundwater. The direct discharge of untreated sewage in nature is not desirable as the decomposition of organic waste could deteriorate the water quality and the environment. Knowledge of the average concentrations of the parameters characterizing the wastewater as well as ranges of possible variations is crucial to ensure adequate wastewater treatment. Traditionally biological method is used in treatment of domestic wastewater (Ouyang et al., 2000). This method has some disadvantages such as air supply, high operating coast (skilled labor , energy, etc) long treatment time and necessary sludge disposal (Pidre et al., 2001) but new technologies such electrocoagulation is susceptible to improve more the efficiency removal of wastewater through the production flock of higher size and density ((Larue and Vorobiev, 2003). The electrocoagulation is considered as low sludge producing and flock formed relatively large contain less bound water and more suitable (Niam et al., 2007). Therefore in this study firstly the suspended solid was investigated by electrocoagulation removal by iron electrode and then the water used by electro-oxidation of ammonia to nitrate by copper electrode.