Claudia L. M. Gasparovic, Eduardo Eyng, Laercio M. Frare, Larissa B. C. Sabbi, Michelle Budke Costa, and Fábio Orssatto
Environment, Computing, Electrocoagulation, Computational Fluid Dynamics
A limitation for the use of electrocoagulation for wastewater treatment is its complexity, since the process is affected by many variables, including the hydrodynamics in the reactor. This paper aimed to present a simulation, through Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), of the flow and velocity field of a bench scale electrocoagulation reactor for textile wastewater treatment, with the goal of selecting the best design for the cell, which consists in a continuous, multiple parallel plate reactor. Six scenarios were proposed combining the different values for the two studied variables: electrode width (7 cm, 9 cm and 11 cm) and number of electrodes (5 pairs or 6 pairs). The CFD simulations were carried out within the software COMSOL Multyphysics®, which solved the Navier-Stokes equations for the incompressible, laminar, steady-state conditions. The results showed that from the scenarios, the best for the desirable conditions within the reactor (good mixture, low velocity profile and few stagnant zones) were the configurations with 5 pairs of 7 cm wide and 6 pairs of 9 cm wide electrodes. A definitive design for the reactor will possibly be achieved in future studies which will include simulations for the concentration profile.
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