| Copper is vital for human health in minute amounts, but rapid and excessive intake of it from drinking water can cause short-term gastrointestinal disturbance. Long-term exposure to copper higher than 1.3 ppm over many years can cause kidney and liver damage. For this reason, in 1991 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency established rules for controlling copper levels in public water supplies. Copper has long been an USEPA priority pollutant and also is an important environmental concern because of its toxicity. In the present work, the electrocoagulation (EC) technique was used to remove copper from aqueous systems using iron sacrificial electrodes, and its analysis was performed using a relatively new nano-band electrode system II, whose working principle involves anodic stripping voltammetry. The removal efficiency of the EC method was optimized for a beaker size reactor for different operating parameters such as retention time, pH, electrolyte concentration, applied current and concentration of copper ion in waste water. The floc produced by electrocoagulation was characterized using XRD, SEM-EDS and FTIR. We also treated the EC-floc to recapture copper by converting it to copper nanowires. Thermal, chemical, and electrochemical methods were used to characterize the treatment. The nanowires were characterized using SEM, XRD, and cyclic voltammetry. Results confirm the synthesis of nanowires of different material. |
