Elmar Javier Franco-Gonzales

One of the biggest problems of water with high concentrations of calcium is its susceptibility to causing scaling in industrial equipment (boilers, heat exchangers, pipes, reverse osmosis membranes, storage tanks, etc.). The purpose of this study was to evaluate a recently built filter press (EC) type electrocoagulation reactor and investigate the efficiency of water hardness removal. The electrocoagulation (EC) reactor has been evaluated in batch mode using electrodes of aluminum (Al) and connected to a direct current power supply in a monopolar way. To evaluate the performance of the reactor, a synthetic solution with a concentration similar to that of brackish water was used. A factorial design was applied to investigate the influence of the electrical potential applied to the electrocoagulation cell at the levels of 3, 5, 7, and 9 V, and initial calcium hardness of 540.2 and 914.60 mg/L CaCO₃ at room temperature in 60 treatment minutes. The results revealed that the electrical potential applied to the electrocoagulation cell was the most significant factor in hardness removal, within the experimental ranges studied. The results showed that electrocoagulation at an electric potential applied at 9 volts and an initial concentration of 7400 mg/L allowed a higher hardness removal efficiency (25.83%). the pH of the solution increased throughout the process. The energy consumption ranged between 4.43 and 42 kW.h/m³ depending on the conditions of the factors. It has been shown that during the treatment process a layer of dense and compact calcium carbonate precipitate is formed on the surface of the cathode.

The tannery industry during its process generates various polluting substances such as organic matter from the skin and chemical inputs, producing wastewater with a high concentration of turbidity. The objective of this research is to evaluate the most appropriate operational parameters of the coupled process of electrocoagulation and advanced oxidation to achieve the removal of turbidity in wastewater from a tannery in the riparian zone (tannery). This process uses a direct current source between perforated aluminum electrodes of circular geometry submerged in the effluent, which causes the dissolution of the aluminum plates. For our study, an electrocoagulation unit coupled to an ozone generator has been built at the laboratory level, where the influence of five factors (voltage, inlet flow to the reactor, initial turbidity, pH, and ozone flow) has been studied with three levels with regarding turbidity, using the Taguchi experimental methodology. The optimal conditions for the removal of turbidity were obtained at 10 volts, 7.5 pH, 360 L/h of wastewater recirculation flow rate; 2400 mg/h of ozone flow rate; and 1130 NTU of initial turbidity of the sample in 60 min of treatment reaching a removal of 99.75% of the turbidity. Under optimal conditions, the removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) was determined, reaching a removal percentage of 33.2% of COD and 39.36% of BOD was achieved. Likewise, the degree of biodegradability of the organic load obtained increased from 0.467 to 0.553.

Salicylic acid is an intermediate product in the synthesis of dyes, medications and aspirin. An electrodialysis module has been constructed with commercial cationic, anionic and bipolar membranes for the conversion of sodium salicylate into salicylic acid. The effect of operating conditions such as applied electric potential, salt concentration, initial acid concentration and volumetric flow on bipolar membrane electrodialysis (BMED) yields were investigated using Taguchi analysis. The results obtained in 210 min of work show an average concentration of salicylic acid of 0.0185 M, an average electric current efficiency of 85.3%, and a specific energy consumption of 2.24 kWh/kg of salicylic acid. It was concluded that the proposed bipolar membrane electrodialysis process is an efficient alternative to produce salicylic acid (SAH) from sodium salicylate (SANa) in an environmentally friendly manner. Furthermore, the production of sodium hydroxide was obtained as a by-product of the process carried out.