Recycling and Reuse of Washing Machine/Laundry Wastewater Using Cost Effective Continuous Flow Household Electrocoagulation Reactor

Abstract

To address the water quality crisis resulting from continuous exponential growth in population, urbanization, industrialization, poor water utilization practices & wastewater management strategies, an experimental investigation was made to recycle and reuse the washing machine wastewater using electrocoagulation. As the first phase, the survey was conducted by collecting the response (in the questionnaire) from 200 residents of a small community. Based on the detailed analysis from the survey conducted, the per capita demand was analysed. In the second phase of the work, the feasibility study of applying continuous flow household electrocoagulation reactor in treating the washing machine wastewater was conducted with the flowrates of 50 ml/min and 100 ml/min and applied current of 1 Amp. The samples were collected at regular interval of 1 hour and analysed for water quality parameters like pH, TDS, Cl, SO4 2-, Mg 2+ and Ca 2+ hardness, turbidity and suspended solids. It was observed that 40 to 60% removal of Cl -, SO4 2-, TDS and hardness causing ions from the influent wastewater stream. Around 25litres of wastewater was treated during every run. It was demonstrated that the electrocoagulation technique can be a best suitable and economical method for the treatment of washing machine/ laundry wastewater. In addition to that, the design of small-scale electrocoagulation set up along with filters was done to remove the hardness, salt, alkalinity, sulphates, TDS to an extent, that the recycled/treated water and be reused again for washing purpose.