A Comparative Study on the Competitiveness of Photo-Assisted Chemical Oxidation (PACO) with Electrocoagulation (EC) for the Effective Decolorization of Reactive Blue Dye

Accumulation of large quantity of non-biodegradable textile dyes into the environment made much attention to finding a suitable solution for the degradation of textile dyes. In this present study, decolorization efficiency of two different treatment technologies such as Photo-Assisted Chemical Oxidation (PACO – UV/H2O2) and Electrocoagulation (EC) on Reactive Blue 194 dye solution (RB194) at different operational conditions were analyzed and the competitiveness of the treatment technologies in terms of energy consumption and operational costs were discussed. Even though both the processes follow different mechanistic approach for the degradation of dye solution, both the processes achieved more than 99% of decolorization efficiency. In terms of material/chemical consumption for the decolorization of dye solution PACO (US$ 0.016) competes with the EC (US$ 0.5937). But in terms of electrical energy consumption as well as the overall operating cost EC process compete (US$ 0.0481 & US$ 0.6418) with the PACO process (US$ 1.0267 & US$ 1.04337).