Removal of lambda-cyhalothrin pesticide by electrocoagulation process using iron and aluminum electrodes

This study evaluates the effectiveness of the electrocoagulation process for the removal of lambda-cyhalothrin pesticide from artificial wastewater in a monopolar parallel connection mode. The effects of treatment time, electrode type, initial pH, and initial pesticide concentration on the removal efficiency of lambda-cyhalothrin and other water quality parameters, such as color, turbidity, and COD, were investigated. The results showed that electrocoagulation effectively removed lambda-cyhalothrin from the wastewater, and iron electrodes seemed to show higher removal efficiencies compared to aluminum electrodes across the different treatment times. However, a maximum removal efficiency of 100% was achieved, whatever the type of electrode used, after 20 minutes of treatment time for a 30 mg/L wastewater sample using a current density of 41.7 mA/cm 2 . The results also showed that, the maximum removal of COD, turbidity and absorbance was observed at a pH around 7. In addition, removal efficiencies increased with treatment time regardless of the initial concentration used. However, increasing the initial pesticide concentration resulted in a decrease in removal efficiency. Based on these results, iron electrodes were more effective for lambda-cyhalothrin removal, whereas aluminum electrodes offered better energy-optimized performance.