Prediction of Arsenic Removal by Electrocoagulation: Model Development by Factorial Design

Model was developed by two-level five-factor full-factorial designed-experiment to predict arsenic removal from contaminated water by electrocoagulation. Five factors, namely arsenic concentration (As), solution volume (V) ; current (I) , electrode area (A) , and current processing time (t) were investigated. Among the factors, arsenic concentration (As) and volume (V) have negative effect, and area (A) , time (t) , and current (I) have positive effect on arsenic removal. Within the studied levels of the factors, variance analysis at 5% significance level indicated that electrode area is not significant in arsenic removal by electrocoagulation. The model predicted reasonably good arsenic removal (error<2%) from low (0.288 mg/L) and high (0.882 mg/L) initial arsenic concentrations in presence of naturally cooccurring solutes in the groundwater. For the range of operating variables studied, optimum removal of arsenic (98.56%) is obtained at higher arsenic concentration (1.18 mg/L), lower volume (1 L), higher current (3 A), and higher current processing time (120 s).