A Comparative Study on the Competitiveness of Photo-Assisted Chemical Oxidation (PACO) with Electrocoagulation (EC) for the Effective Decolorization of Reactive Blue Dye

Abstract

<em>Accumulation of large quantity of non-biodegradable textile dyes into the environment made much attention to finding a suitable solution for the degradation of textile dyes. In this present study, decolorization efficiency of two different treatment technologies such as </em><em>Photo-Assisted Chemical Oxidation (PACO – UV/H₂O₂) and Electrocoagulation (EC) on Reactive Blue 194 dye solution (RB194) at different operational conditions were analyzed and the competitiveness <br /> of the treatment technologies in terms of energy consumption and operational costs </em><em>were discussed. Even though both the processes follow different mechanistic approach for the degradation of dye solution, both the processes achieved more than 99% of decolorization efficiency. In terms of material/chemical consumption for the decolorization of dye solution PACO (US$ 0.016) competes with the EC (US$ 0.5937). But in terms of electrical energy consumption <br /> as well as the overall operating cost EC process compete (US$ 0.0481 & US$ 0.6418) with the PACO process (US$ 1.0267 & US$ 1.04337).</em>