Olive mill wastewater treatment by anodic oxidation with parallel plate electrodes

Olive mill wastewater is characterized by very high chemical oxygen demand (COD) values and contains high concentrations of polyphenols that inhibit the activity of micro-organisms during biological oxidations. In this paper, the applicability of electrochemical oxidation of a real olive-mill wastewater was studied by performing galvanostatic electrolysis using parallel plate electrodes. A mixed titanium and ruthenium oxide (Ti/TiRuO2) was used as anode and stainless steel as cathode. The effect of chloride concentration and applied current on the removal of COD, aromatic content and colour was investigated. The experimental results showed that an effective electrochemical oxidation was achieved in which the wastewater was decolourised and the COD and aromatic content completely eliminated. In particular, the mineralisation took place by indirect oxidation, mediated by active chlorine, and the COD removal rate was enhanced by the addition of 5 g L−1 of NaCl to the wastewater and by increasing the applied current.