Modeling the Effect of Operation Variables on Copper Ions Removal by Electrocoagulation

Water pollution can be defined as the contamination of a stream, river, lake, ocean or any other stretch of water, depleting water quality and making it toxic for the environment and humans. The environmental effects of water pollution primarily involve the damage that pollution does to the surrounding ecosystem. Many of the organisms that depend on a supply of relatively healthy water will die. This work investigates the removal of copper ions from simulated wastewater by electrocoagulation EC, in which the impact of initial copper concentration, initial pH solution, and the temperature was made. These investigations used the Box-Behnken experimental design (BBD), combined with response surface methodology RSM. The results show that the removal efficiency ranged between 26 and 97%; optimum conditions for the highest removal efficiency are 99.37% at 56 °C, 3 and 200 ppm for temperature, initial pH solution, and initial copper concentration, respectively. According to the analysis of variance ANOVA, the correlation coefficient R2 is 99.1%, proving that the experimental data and model predictions agreed well via high adj. R2 (97.48%).