Electrochemical cell for wastewater treatment based on textile electrodes

Wastewater suffers different processes of treatment depending on the source, concentration, and the type of contained contaminants. Among other contaminants, one of the most complex to get rid of is the colour from the wastewater. The standard dying processes discard around 70% of the used water during the process with low efficiency. Even some processes in which around 50% of the synthetic dye is lost in the wastewater which are capable to contaminate superficial and subterranean water near to textile industries. Traditionally, processes of water depuration headed to dying have been uneconomical and completely non-viable, so that specialized companies into hazardous waste management for the environment have been subcontracted with elevated cost. Non-soluble in water dyes are removed in a primary stage of coagulation-decantation, while those one more soluble will continue to the biological tank. Within this process, biomass retains around 10-30% of dye, meaning that further tertiary treatments become necessary with a high cost. This process permits the realization of this tertiary treatment by means of electrochemical cells based on textile electrodes of high surface and cost competitive. This invention proposes an electrochemical cell inside a system consisting of a sealed tank where the electrolysis process is done with an in and out flow, together with an impulsion pump generating a constant flow. Inside the tank, two meshes independently composed by an electricity conductive material, an electricity source, and, at least, two textile electrodes separated by 0.1 and 5.0 cm, conformed of electricity conductive fabric and small ohmic drop. The electricity source provides to the meshes with a uniform and constant electrical potential led until the textile electrodes for the distribution over the complete surface acting one electrode as anode and the other as cathode. One of the electrodes has been improved by means of an intermediate reduced graphene oxide layer, and an outer metallic nanoparticles layer reduced as well. Due to this, contact surface has increased, and therefore the efficiency significantly does.