Electrochemical Treatment as a Promising Advanced Technique for Industrial Wastewater Treatment

Electrochemical wastewater treatment includes several techniques that could be used solely or combined such as electro-regulation, electro-flotation, electro-oxidation, electrochemical reduction and electro-chlorination. It has been used to successfully treat numerous wastewaters including leachate from solid wastes, industrial wastewater and wastewater contaminants such as phenol, oil, boron, and petroleum. This technique has several advantages as compared to traditional treatment methods in terms of use of simple equipment, ease of operation and reduction of added chemicals. Furthermore, sludge produced tends to readily settle and is produced in smaller quantities compared with traditional methods. Despite the efficiency shown by electro-coagulation (EC) and electro-oxidation (EOX) treatment of industrial wastewater with several pollutants, its application as a possible technique for industrial wastewater treatment on field scale in Egypt is very limited. Therefore, this chapter focuses on the evaluation of these electrochemical processes to apply for various industrial wastewater treatment and techno-economic possibilities for full-scale application in the Egyptian industrial sector. Also, case studies and applications carried out in Egypt will be presented.