International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology

https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-017-1529-2

ORIGINAL PAPER

Wastewater treatment: a case study of electronics manufacturing

industry
R. Abdel Wahaab1 · F. A. Alseroury2

Received: 23 January 2017 / Revised: 4 August 2017 / Accepted: 5 September 2017

© Islamic Azad University (IAU) 2018

Abstract
Industrial wastewater from electronics industries contains a high load of cyanide, toxic metals and chemical oxygen demand
(COD). In the present study, a chemical treatment of electronics industry effluent was carried out for one of the largest elec-
tronics factories in Egypt. Alkaline chlorination and chemical reduction were performed sequentially as pretreatment steps
with the aim of removing cyanide and ­Cr+6 from the effluent of the nickel–chrome production line. Thereafter, pretreated
water was mixed with the end pipe effluent containing wastewater of all production lines and evaluated for final treatment
using coagulation process. Different coagulants (CaO, F ­ eSO4, polyelectrolyte) were applied with different compositions and
concentrations. The water quality parameters such as COD, biological oxygen demand (BOD), cyanide, heavy metals and
pH were estimated in an attempt to achieve a higher treatment efficiency. The results showed that the alkaline chlorination
removed 100% of cyanide at pH 11 during 2 h of reaction time. Sequentially, a complete reduction of hexavalent chromium
­(Cr+6) to non-toxic trivalent chromium (­ Cr+3) was achieved at pH 2 during pretreatment of nickel–chrome wastewater. Among
various coagulants, the combination of CaO (80 mg/L) with F ­ eSO4 (60 mg/L) represented highest treatment efficiency of
wastewater within the permissible limits. BOD and COD were decreased to as low as 43 and 67 mg/L, whereas heavy metals
(Cr, Cu, Ni and Zn) were found below 0.02 mg/L. Overall, the results revealed that this method could be adopted to establish
an economical and efficient wastewater treatment system for effluents of electronics industries.

Keywords  Industrial wastewater · Electronics industry · Coagulation · Alkaline chlorination · Chemical treatment · Metals

Introduction on the environment (Sochacki et al. 2014). In the electronics

The electronics manufacturing industry has been identified
as one of the fastest growing industries (Gu et al. 2016).
This rapid pace of growth is also a source of large volumes
of wastewater carrying high metal content (Xu et al. 2015).
Reportedly the discharged wastewater from the electronics
industry carries a significant amount of metals and cyanide.
These compounds have been classified as hazardous species
because of their potential toxic effects on humans as well as
Editorial responsibility: Ta Yeong Wu
* F. A. Alseroury
falseroury@gmail.com
1
Environmental Sciences, National Research Center, Cairo,
Egypt
2
Department of Physics, Faculty of Sciences, King
Abdulaziz University & University of Jeddah, Jeddah,
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
industry, the main process responsible for the production of
hazardous compounds is electroplating which alter the char-
acteristics of any object by means of the electrolytic coat-
ing. Electroplating is done by dissolving the desired metal at
the anode and depositing it at cathode through the passage
of electrical current. The process is primarily performed to
improve the surface properties such as appearance, durabil-
ity, engineering or mechanical characteristics (Martín-Lara
et al. 2014).
The effluent from electrical manufacturing industry, espe-
cially those of containing bath solutions in electroplating,
carries high loads of metals (usually in hundreds of g/L)
(Martín-Lara et al. 2014). However, electroplating wastewa-
ter has low organic matter, but have a high toxicity. Among
the prime contaminants in electroplating wastewater, cya-
nide and suspended metals are of great concern. To obtain
high-quality electroplated products, cyanide is extensively
used (Zhang et al. 2015), which results in the production
of toxic wastewater which contains cyanide. The high

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potential of coordination of cyanide with other metals pro-
duces wastewater with high free and metal-bound cyanide
(Xu et al. 2015). Therefore, the wastewater discharged from
electronics industry is highly toxic (Monser and Adhoum
2002; Zhang et al. 2015) and could be hazardous for the
aquatic animals and humans.
Further chromium is also released in electronics industry
from electroplating, anodizing, chromating and metal finish-
ing; other sources of chromium include tannery, dying and
fertilizer industries. Chromium, especially in the hexava-
lent form, needs special attention because of its high tox-
icity (Vasudevan et al. 2010; Liu et al. 2011; Dermentzis
et al. 2011). Chromium(VI) concentration may range up
to 2500 mg/L in the wastewater being discharged from the
electroplating units. This concentration is far higher than the
permissible limits for Cr(VI) that is 0.5 mg/L in wastewater
and 0.1 mg/L in drinking water (Dermentzis et al. 2011).
These contaminants do not only limit the efficiency of
the biological processes (Kim et al. 2011) but also impact
the quality of the sludge and fate of its disposal (Chipasa
2003; Sochacki et al. 2014). The hazardous property of the
wastewater sustains when the metals either get dissolved or
remain suspended in the wastewater even after treatment and
such water is discharged into the sewage stream. Therefore, a
proper treatment method is mandatory prior to the discharge
of such highly hazardous wastewater to the open water chan-
nels (Zhang et al. 2015).
Various techniques have been developed for the treatment
of electroplating rinse wastewater (Lu et al. 2015). Conven-
tional biological methods for the wastewater treatment fail
to confirm the complete removal of such toxic heavy metals
and cyanide of electroplating origin. High levels of toxic
contaminants in the electroplating wastewater hinder the bio-
logical treatment processes such as activated sludge, anaero-
bic digestion (Quijano et al. 2017) and aerobic treatment
(Guo et al. 2012), and therefore, the removal of heavy metals
and toxic cyanide is critical (Liu et al. 2013). Moreover, acti-
vated sludge processes and anaerobic digestion treatments
still present important technical and economic limitations
due to their high energy requirements (Quijano et al. 2017).
However, there are other available physical and chemical
methods for the treatment of electroplating wastewater; for
instance, chemical precipitation, coagulation, flocculation
and ion exchange methods have successfully been employed
(Martín-Lara et al. 2014; Lu et al. 2015). Coagulation–floc-
culation is widely used in treatment of water (Teh and Wu
2014) and wastewater (Teh et al. 2016) due to its simplicity
and effectiveness. Recently, new treatment options such as
polishing in constructed wetlands (Sochacki et al. 2014),
nanofiltration membrane technology (Wang et al. 2013), per-
meable reactive barriers (Liu et al. 2013), ­H2O2 oxidation
with anodic Fenton processes (Zhao et al. 2013), combined
electrochemical and ozonation methods (Orescanin et al.
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International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology
2013) and photocatalysis (Hudaya et al. 2013; Martín-Lara
et al. 2014; Anjum et al. 2017) have also been used for the
treatment of electroplating wastewater.
Among the various proposed methods of cyanide removal
from electroplating wastewater (Pulkka et al. 2014; Xu et al.
2015), alkaline chlorination is considered as the most favora-
ble option. Alkaline chlorination has been used ever since
1889 when cyanide leaching was commercially established
and became the most commonly applied technology for cya-
nide removal. It has potential to remove free cyanide species
completely, rapidly and economically. On the other hand,
the chemical coagulation is observed as one of the most
significant and extensively applied processes for treatment
of industrial wastewater (Liu and Ratnaweera 2017). Coag-
ulation process plays a prominent role in removal of oily
wastewater and other toxic pollutants such as heavy metal,
due to its numerous advantages, including easy and auto-
mated operation, and high filterability of the treated effluent
(Martín-Lara et al. 2014).
The aim of the present study was to manage and develop
appropriate treatment option for wastewater generated
from electronics industries. Presently, there exists a gap in
knowledge for treatment of electronics industrial wastewa-
ter produced from different production lines separately. The
wastewater from each production line has different charac-
teristic pollutants and therefore required a special treatment.
Moreover, the treated effluent shall comply with the con-
cerned environmental law that is regulating the discharge
of wastewater into drain (law 48/1982). The law effectively
requires treatment of industrial wastewater prior to discharge
into surface water in order to protect the aquatic environment
from industrial pollutants. The study was performed using
the wastewater samples from electronics industry located
in Gharbia, Egypt. The experimentations and analyses of
samples were conducted at National Research Center, Cairo,
Egypt, during 2014–2015.
Materials and methods
Study concepts
Electronics factory located at El-Mahala El-Kobra, Gharbia
Governorate, Egypt, is the subject of the present study. The
factory is specialized in the production of fans, ovens, mix-
ers, toasters, washing machines, cookers and other electron-
ics house machines. Daily water consumption of the factory
is 100 m3, producing the industrial effluents 90 m3 from all
producing lines and discharged into the nearby agricultural
drain. The assessment of effluent was conducted to check
its compliance with environmental law 48/1982 and its arti-
cle No. 66. In this study, an efficient wastewater treatment
International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology
option is suggested for removal of cyanide and heavy metals
from different production lines in the electronics industry.
Wastewater sampling and characterization
Composite sampling of wastewater from different production
lines nickel–chrome production, galvanization production,
enamel production and end of the pipe was conducted, and
samples were stored at 4 °C. One liter of wastewater sample
was taken from each production line. The characterization of
wastewater was performed for various parameters including
pH, TDS, TSS, BOD, COD, oil and grease content, phenol,
total phosphate ­(PO4) phosphorous, cyanide and heavy met-
als. The description of wastewater production lines in a typi-
cal electronics factory and experimental setup is described
in Fig. 1.
Experimentations
Treatment processes in the electronics industry are
designed primarily to accomplish four objectives: the
destruction of cyanide, removal of chromium and other
heavy metals and oil and grease. The treatment process was
conducted in three steps in laboratory-based experiments.
In first and second step, two consecutive pretreatments
were given to the wastewater from the nickel–chrome pro-
duction line for removal of cyanide and reduction of ­Cr+6,
respectively. In the third step, the pretreated wastewater
Fig. 1  Conceptual flowchart of wastewater production lines in electronics industry and treatment options
was mixed with end pipe effluent and subjected to chemi-
cal treatment using coagulation process.
Pretreatment of nickel–chrome production line WW
Alkaline chlorination: For removal of cyanide, a labora-
tory test was performed using alkaline chlorination pro-
cess. The wastewater from nickel–chrome production line
was initially treated in this step. In a laboratory experi-
ment, sodium hydroxide solution (6N) was added to 1-L
volumetric flask containing wastewater and pH was main-
tained at 11. Chlorine water (100 mL/L) containing 1 ml
equal to 1 mg ­Cl2 was added to the alkaline wastewater.
To avoid the precipitation of solid cyanide, which may
resist the chlorination process, the wastewater was con-
tinuously and vigorously mixed on the stirrer at 200 rpm.
The experiment was conducted for 2 h and analyzed for
removal of cyanide.
Chemical reduction: After alkaline chlorination, a sec-
ond pretreatment wastewater was given for conversion of
hexavalent chromium to trivalent chromium using a strong
reducing agent (­FeSO 4 ·6H 2 O). Sulfuric acid solution
(50%) was added to 1 L chromium wastewater to maintain
a residual pH of 3.0 or lower in the acidic range. Ferrous
sulfate heptahydrate was continuously added until the yel-
low color of the solution was disappeared. To neutralize
the pH (8.5) and precipitation of ­Cr3+, lime was added to
the wastewater.
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 International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology

Effect of coagulants pH was maintained at 8.5 during complete process. Each

The pretreated wastewater was mixed with end pipe effluent
in 1:1 and subjected to the final treatment using the coagula-
tion process for removal of heavy metals. The jar test proce-
dure was adapted for chemical coagulation. The chemicals
used in the study were ferrous sulfate (­ FeSO4), lime (CaO)
and polyelectrolyte. Five combinations of these coagulants
were made to apply to the mixed effluent (pretreated + end
pipe) which are described in Table 1.
The mixed wastewater to be coagulated was placed under
a state of rapid stirring (270 rpm), while the coagulants were
added slowly to the solution under the constant stirring for
1 min. The speed was reduced in a regular stepwise manner
to 100 rpm for 60 s until flocculation stage was reached.
Later on, the process was continued for 20 min at a stirring
rate of 20–30 rpm, for maximum floc formation. After that,
stirring was stopped and settling of flocs was allowed. The
of the coagulant combinations was tested in different runs
using the same procedure as mentioned above. Finally, sam-
ples required for analysis were taken by means of a suction
device to allow the withdrawal of accurate amounts from all
jars at the same time.
Analysis
The wastewater samples were analyzed for various param-
eters such as COD, BOD, TDS, TSS, cyanide, phenol, total
­PO4 P and heavy metals (Fe, Cr, Cu, Ni, Zn). The analyses
were performed according to the American Standard Test
Methods (1998) for investigation of wastewater. The graphi-
cal representation, mean and standard deviation were per-
formed using MS excel 2010 software.
Results and discussion

Table 1  Chemical coagulants and concentrations used in experimen- Wastewater characteristics of different production
tations lines
Labels Coagulant Concentration (mg/L)
The samples of wastewater collected from four production
C1 CaO 200 lines were analyzed for their quality parameters and com-
C2 FeSO4 200 pared with standard permissible limits of effluent (Table 2).
C3 FeSO4 + CaO 200 + 200 The pH of the effluents remained in alkaline range 8–10 in
C4 FeSO4 + CaO 60 + 80 all production lines. TDS and TSS levels were below per-
C5 FeSO4 + CaO + polyelec- 60 + 80 + 2.0 missible limits, while high COD and BOD were found in all
trolyte
production lines. Highest COD and BOD were observed in

Table 2  Physiochemical characteristic of wastewater samples collected from various production processes

Parameter Unit Line 1 Line 2 Line 3 End pipe Permis-
sible
Values SD Values SD Values SD Values SD limits

pH – 8.6 371.7 9.3 0.420 10.1 0.60 8.3 0.31 6–9

TDS mg/L 1575 4.5 1693 78.73 1634 58.40 1626 134.71 2000
TSS mg/L 54 66.6 52 28.84 64 5.29 51 8.14 60
BOD mgO2/L 313 89.6 390 68.09 162 23.07 191 54.64 60
COD mgO2/L 934 8.3 1270 324.3 553 295.08 760 43.25 100
Oil and grease mg/L 39 0.0 51 16.77 64 8.72 50 8.50 10
Phenol mg/L 0.01 3.0 0.006 0.010 <0.001 – 0.003 – 0.005
T.PO4 mg/L 1.7 – 30 26.07 59 17.07 32 6.26 10
CN mg CN/L <0.1 0.5 6.6 1.67 0.6 0.98 4.46 1.14 0.1
Iron mg/L 0.5 – 1.13 1.78 1.83 1.55 1.13 0.85 –
Cr mg/L <0.02 0.0 6.4 1.46 0.1 0.07 4.4 0.65 –
Cu mg/L <0.01 0.0 0.4 0.15 3.7 1.15 0.97 1.20 –
Ni mg/L <0.02 0.0 7.1 1.97 <0.02 – 1.4 1.07 –
Zn mg/L <0.01 0.0 0.32 0.21 48.9 17.50 11 3.20 –
Total heavy metals mg/L <0.1 – 14.15 0.95 52.5 16.79 17.67 5.70 1

Line 1: nickel–chrome production line, Line 2: galvanization production line, Line 3: enamel production line, permissible limits: wastewater dis-
charge limits by environmental law No. 48/1982

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International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology
galvanization production line with the values of 1270 and
390 mg/L, respectively. The organic load in galvanization
production line is due to the surface preparation step in
which the object is subjected to degreasing/caustic clean-
ing to remove dirt, oil and grease which increase the COD
and BOD of wastewater. A few studies reported lower BOD
level in electroplating effluents, i.e., up to 66.5 mg/L (Hack-
barth et al. 2016). Oil and grease content was in the range
of 39–60 mg/L, where the maximum value (60 mg/L) was
found in enamel production line. The toxic pollutant load
such as cyanide and heavy metals was above the permis-
sible limits. Cyanide was found up to 6.6 mg/L, due to the
use of cyanide chemical in nickel–chrome electroplating
process (Zhang et al. 2015). Similarly, this process is also
responsible for the production of chromium (­ Cr+6) as the
maximum concentration (6.4 mg/L) was observed in the
nickel–chrome production line. Reportedly, Abdel Wahaab
(2000) and Abdel Wahaab et al. (2010) found the concentra-
tion of various pollutants (Cu, Cr, Ni, Zn and CN) in indus-
trial effluent in the range of 6.5, 60, 283, 63.5 and 350 mg/L,
respectively, which are comparable to the value observed in
the present study. Overall, these quality parameters show
that the wastewater produced from the various production
lines in electronics industry exhibits high pollution load.
Moreover, industrial effluents from all production lines dis-
charge into nearby open channels and do not comply with
the standards set by the environmental law No. 48/1982.
Therefore, a proper treatment of electronics industrial efflu-
ent is required before final discharge.
Pretreatment of nickel–chrome production line WW
The results regarding the effect of two sequential pretreat-
ments are described in Fig. 2. In the case of pH, a basic
range was observed with a slight decline from 9.0 to 8.5
after pretreatment reactions (Fig. 2a). The basic pH may
be attributed to the addition of NaOH solution during the
alkaline chlorination process. An efficient removal of solids,
i.e., TDS (59%) and TSS (49.7%) was achieved (Fig. 2b, c).
This degradation in solid content is mainly attributed to the
removal of organic matter content under the action of pre-
treatments, where BOD and COD values were decreased to
250 and 680 mg/L from their initial concentrations, i.e., 400
and 1200 mg/L, respectively (Fig. 2d, e). In case of phenol,
the chemical reduction (­ FeSO4·6H2O) completely removed
(100%) the phenol from the wastewater (Fig. 2g), whereas
total ­PO4 phosphorus was removed only by 39%. An overall
efficiency in percentage removal regarding various param-
eters is summarized in Fig. 2j.
The pretreatment was given to wastewater samples of
nickel–chrome production line with the main aim of remov-
ing cyanide and the reduction of hexavalent chromium. In
case of cyanide, which is a highly toxic pollutant that exists
in electroplating wastewater (Gao et  al. 2013; Xu et  al.
2015), alkaline chlorination removed 100% of cyanide dur-
ing the 2-h process (Fig. 2i). Reportedly, the alkaline chlo-
rination is the most widely method used for destruction of
cyanide from wastewater (Xu et al. 2012) and even removed
the free cyanide species. During alkaline chlorination, the
complete removal of cyanide is achieved due to oxidation by
active chlorine (Hu et al. 2015). Moreover, it has to be noted
that violent agitation must accompany the chlorination, to
prevent the formation of cyanide salts. The probable reaction
with excess chlorine and NaOH can be expressed as follows:
2NaCN + 5Cl2 + 12NaOH → N2 + 2Na2 CO3 + 10NaCl + 6H2 O
Effect of pretreatment on removal of ­Cr+6 and other
heavy metals
The effect of pretreatments on heavy metal content is illus-
trated in Fig. 3. Hexavalent chromium (­ Cr+6) is one of the
common heavy metals and highly toxic even at low con-
centration due to its non-degradability and bioaccumulation
potential in the food chain (Dai et al. 2015). The results
showed that the chemical reduction with ­FeSO 4·6H 2O
reduced the C ­ r+6 by almost 100%, where the final concen-
tration of C­ r+6 was decreased to 0.1 mg/L from its initial
value 8.4 mg/L. This significant decrease in chromium was
mainly due to the reduction of C ­ r+6 to C
­ r+3 under the influ-
ence of strong reducing agent (­ FeSO4·6H2O) used during
pretreatment process. The reduction of ­Cr+6 was required
acidic condition for completion; therefore, sulfuric acid was
added to maintain the pH around 2–3 during the process.
Hackbarth et al. (2016) also found the efficient reduction of
­Cr+6 to ­Cr+3 in acidic pH. The following chemical equations
illustrate the reactions:
H2 Cr2 O7 + 6FeSO4 + 6H2 O → Cr2 (SO4 )3
+ 3Fe2 (SO4 )3 + 7H2 OCr2 (SO4 )3 + 3Ca(OH)2
→ 2Cr(OH)3 + 3CaSO4 3Fe2 (SO4 )3 + 3Ca2
→ 6Fe(OH)2 + 6CaSO4
H2 Cr2 O7 + 6FeSO4 + 6Ca(OH)2 + 6H2 O
→ 2Cr(OH)3 + 6CaSO4
+ 6Fe(OH)2 + 7H2 O
For other heavy metals, Cu and Ni showed a slight reduc-
tion, which was only up to 20 and 30% of their respective
initial values. The concentration of Cu was lowered to
1.2 mg/L in pretreated effluent which is comparatively low
(2.04 mg/L) as observed in the study of Martín-Lara et al.
(2014). Zn showed 51% removal with the decrease in con-
centration from 3.2 to 1.6 mg/L. Overall, total heavy metal
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 International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology

Fig. 2  Wastewater treatment
efficiency of pretreatments
(alkaline chlorination + chemi-
cal reduction) of nickel–chrome
production effluent. a pH, b
TDS, c TSS, d BOD, e COD,
f oil and grease, g phenol, h
total phosphate P, i cyanide,
j removal percentage of each
pollutant. RWW​raw wastewater,
TWW​treated wastewater

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International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology
Fig. 3  Heavy metal removal
efficiency after pretreatment
(alkaline chlorination + chemi-
cal reduction) of wastewater of
nickel–chrome production line.
RWW​raw wastewater, TWW​
treated wastewater, TM total
heavy metal concentration
(TM) removal (Cr, Cu, Ni and Zn collectively) during pre-
treatments was up to 62.2%. As C ­ r+6 is the major pollut-
ant of the electroplating process (Gupta et al. 2010), it was
completely removed by the chemical reduction pretreatment
process.
Effect of coagulants
The pretreated wastewater from nickel–chrome production
line was mixed with the end of the pipe wastewater (MiWW)
and evaluated for the treatment efficiency of different coagu-
lants conditions. The results regarding different water quality
parameters described in Fig. 4. It was found that the use of
coagulants in combination provided more promising treat-
ment capability. In case of TDS, maximum degradation was
observed in C4 (­ FeSO4 60 mg/L + CaO 80 mg/L) where up
to 87% removal was achieved (Fig. 4a). TDS was decreased
to 205 and 244 mg/L in C4 and C3, respectively, from the
initial value of 1626 mg/L in raw wastewater, whereas TSS
were found to be lowest in C3 ­(FeSO4 200 mg/L + CaO
200 mg/L) with removal of 57% compared to the control
(Fig. 4b). Similar to TDS, the coagulant C4 also achieved
the maximum efficiency for the removal organic content, i.e.,
BOD (Fig. 4c) and COD (Fig. 4d) with the removal up to 51
and 91%. Other studies also mentioned the removal of COD
above 60% using F ­ eSO4-based coagulants (Prakash and Garg
2016). Similarly, C3 (­ FeSO4 200 mg/L + CaO 200 mg/L)
and C5 ­(FeSO4 60 mg/L + CaO 80 mg/L + polyelectrolyte
2 mg/L) also showed better treatment efficiency as compared
to the other coagulants achieved a higher BOD (45, 40%)
and COD removal (85, 87%), respectively. A similar phe-
nomenon was also reported by Shak and Wu (2015) whereby
the combination between alum as a coagulant and Cassia
obtusifolia seed gum was observed to be an adequate alter-
native to treat industrial wastewater. C1 (CaO 200 mg/L)
showed the least BOD and COD degradation that is corre-
sponding to 7 and 61%. The coagulant also showed poten-
tial for removal of oil and grease and total P­ O4 phosphorus
content. The separation of oil and grease was increased up
to 95 and 92% by the use of C5 and C3 coagulants, while C1
had only 46% of separation (Fig. 2e). Total P
­ O4 phosphorous
was decreased to a undetected level with coagulant combi-
nation C4 followed by C5 with the total ­PO4 phosphorous
content of 3.7 mg/L in treated effluent (Fig. 2f). However, Li
et al. (2014) achieved only 62.4% removal of total ­PO4 phos-
phorous due to precipitation with Fe(III) in electroplating
wastewater. In general, the coagulants in low-dose combina-
tion showed better efficiency for organic matter removal and
treatment of wastewater as compared to use of coagulants as
single higher dose.
The effect of coagulant on the removal of toxic heavy
metal contents such as Cr, Cu, Ni and Zn is illustrated in
Fig. 5. It can be observed that the coagulant combinations
C4 and C5 showed the maximum removal efficiency of
heavy metals as compared to that with single coagulants
(C1 and C2). Using coagulants in combination (C4) showed
almost 100% removal of ­Cr+6 with the final concentration as
low as less than 0.02 mg/L in treated wastewater (Fig. 5a).
Comparatively, in study of Wang et al. (2014), 97.11% of
­Cr+6 reduction was achieved from electroplating wastewater
sorption on magnetic biochar. The wastewater treated with
single (C1 and C2) coagulant showed high loads of C ­ r+6
that is up to 3.9 and 2.5 mg/L, respectively. In case of Cu, a
similar trend was achieved with the 100% removal with C4
and C5 coagulants combinations (Fig. 5b). This Cu removal
was also higher as achieved by Sochacki et al. (2014) in their
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 International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology

Fig. 4  Effect of various
coagulants removals of various
pollutants on mixed pretreated
and end pipe effluents. a TDS, b
TSS, c BOD, d COD, e oil and
grease, f total P
­ O4 phosphorous

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Fig. 5  Effect of various coagu-

lants on heavy metal removals
in mixed pretreated and end
pipe effluents. a Cu, b Cr, c Ni,
d Zn, e total heavy metals

study, where 0.1–1 mg/L removal of Cu from electroplating
wastewater was recorded. For other coagulants, high levels
(1 and 0.7 mg/L) of Cu were observed in C1 and C2 coagu-
lants, respectively, and followed by C3 (0.5 mg/L of Cu) in
treated effluent. The Ni and Zn were removed by 100 and
95%, respectively, with use of C4 (Fig. 5c, d). The highest
Ni and Zn content was found in C1-treated effluent, where
1.2 mg/L of Ni and 8 mg/L of Zn were observed. Based on
the general assumption from results, the efficiency of differ-
ent coagulants for treatment of wastewater is in the order of
C4 > C5 > C3 > C2 > C1. In the present study, the coagu-
lation process was conducted at basic pH (8.5) in order to
remove heavy metal more efficiently. It is also evident from
the study of Kobya et al. (2017), where they achieved 99.9%

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Table 3  Comparative assessment of final treated wastewater with limits (2000 mg/L). BOD and COD are considered as the
wastewater permissible limits by environmental law No. 48/1982 main indicator of water pollution was 43 and 67 mg/L
Parameter Raw wastewater Treated waste- Per- in C4 in agreement standard limits (60 and 100 mg/L),
water mis- respectively. Similarly, for pollutants such as heavy met-
sible als, C4 and C5 achieved permissible concentration with
C4 C5 limits
a final concentration of 0.54 mg and 0.77, respectively.
pH 8.6 8.5 9.0 6–9 Overall, it has been discovered the both coagulants could
TDS (mg/L) 1570 205 243 2000 be appropriate for treatment of electronics wastewater;
TSS (mg/L) 60 40 33 60 however, the combination C4 was more controlled under
BOD (mg ­O2/L) 213 43 55 60 the standard permissible limits and thus could be adopted
COD (mg ­O2/L) 934 67 97 100 for field application at the industrial level.
Oil and grease (mg/L) 50 6.5 2.5 10
Phenol (mg/L) 0.003 N.D. N.D. 0.005
Total phosphate P (mg 25 N.D. 3.7 10 Conclusion
P/L)
Cyanide (mg/L) 2.1 N.D. N.D. 0.1 Electroplating process plays an important role in the devel-
Cr (mg/L) 6.0 <0.02 0.42 – opment of electronics manufacturing industries in the world;
Cu (mg/L) 1.85 <0.01 <0.01 – however, this sector is a source of enormous amount inor-
Ni (mg/L) 2.35 <0.02 <0.02 – ganic pollutants (CN, Cr, phenols, other heavy metals) in the
Zn (mg/L) 12.65 0.54 0.35 – water bodies. In the present study, cyanide and chromium
Total metals (mg/L) 22.85 0.54 0.77 1.0 ­(Cr+6) were efficiently removed from nickel–chrome produc-
Sludge volume (ml/L) – 40 130 – tion line before entering of wastewater to end pipe effluent.
Sludge weight (g/L) at – 0.54 1.6 – Sequential pretreatments (alkaline chlorination and chemical
105 °C
reduction) were removed cyanide and ­Cr+6 by 100%. For
other pollutants including heavy metals, the use of chemi-
cal coagulants in combination (CaO: 60 mg/L + FeSO4:
of Zn removal from electroplating wastewater using coagula- 80 mg/L) achieved a significant removal in the final effluent
tion process. Overall, total heavy metal removal was 100% with standard permissible limits. Thus, using these methods
in both C4 and C5 coagulants (Fig. 5e), which revealed that a substantial wastewater treatment plan could be developed
the use of F
­ eSO4 + CaO coagulants in combination even at for electronics industries. Moreover, the recovery of elec-
lower concentration (C4: ­FeSO4 60 mg/L + CaO 80 mg/L) troplating wastewaters is an important topic of concern not
could be considered as a good combination for treatment of only from the perspective of treatment but also from the
heavy metals in electronics industry wastewater. recuperation of valuable metals.

Performance of wastewater treatment Acknowledgements  This work was supported and performed at
National Research Center, Cairo, Egypt.
and compliance with standard limits

As the highest efficiency of wastewater treatment was

observed under use of C4 and C5 coagulant combinations, Abbreviations
their treatment efficiency was evaluated for its compliance
with standard permissible limits required for wastewater COD Chemical oxygen demand
discharge according to law 48/1982 (USAIP 1999). A BOD Biological oxygen demand
descriptive comparison of various water quality param- TSS Total suspended solids
eters with standard permissible limits is described and TDS Total dissolved solids
summarized in Table 3. As a whole, both C4 and C5 coag- TM Total heavy metal concentration
ulants showed the water quality within the permissible RWW​ Raw wastewater
limits, where the value for C4 comparatively more lowered TWW​ Treated wastewater
compared to C5. For instance, TDS in C5 was 243 mg/L, MiWW Mixed wastewater (nickle–chrome production
whereas it was 205 mg/L in C4 compared to the standard line + end pipe)

13
International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology

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