House hold unit for the treatment of fluoride, iron, arsenic and microorganism contaminated drinking water

A first of its kind hybrid electrocoagulation-filtration prototype unit was fabricated for the removal of fluoride, iron, arsenic and microorganisms contaminated drinking water. The unit comprised of 3 chambers, chamber A consisting of an inlet for the water to be treated and an outlet for the treated water along with one block of aluminum electrodes. Chamber B consisted of ceramic membrane filtration assembly at the bottom over a metallic support which filters the flocs so produced in chamber A and chamber C consisting of space to collect the treated water. Operating parameters were maintained as current density of 625 A m(-2) and an electrode distance of 0.005 m. Contaminated drinking water containing mixture of fluoride (10 mg L-1), iron (25 mg L-1), arsenic (200 mu g L-1) and microorganisms (35 CFU ml(-1)) was used for the experiment. A removal of 98.74%, 95.65%, 93.2% and 100% were obtained for iron, arsenic, fluoride and microorganisms, respectively. The apparatus and method made t possible to efficiently treat contaminated drinking water to produce drinkable water as per WHO specification. By-products obtained from the electrocoagulation bath were analyzed using SEM, EDX and XRD and explained. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.