Abstract
In this work, treatment of synthetic fluoride-containing solutions by electrocoagulation (EC) method using aluminium electrodes has been studied in order to treat wastewater from photovoltaic wafers production industry. EC was investigated for applied potential (10-30V), electrolysis time and supporting electrolyte (NaCl) concentration (0-100 mg/L). Our results showed that with increasing applied potential and electrolysis time, the Al(+3) dosage increases too, and thereby favouring the fluoride ions removal. It was also observed that defluoridation is dependant on the concentration of supporting electrolyte. Finally, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy of X-rays and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy were used to characterize the solid products formed by aluminium electrodes during the EC process.