Treatment of vinasse liquid from sugarcane industry using electro-coagulation/flocculation followed by ultra filtration

In this present work, vinasse, a by-product of sugarcane industry, was examined using combined treatment methods to purify it. Electrocoagulation/flocculation, ultrafiltration were applied as pre-treatment and post-treatment, respectively. The effectiveness of combined process was evaluated based on colour, turbidity and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal. The efficiency of electrochemical reactor was investigated according to process variables such as retention time, electrode distance and electrolyte dose. From the results, the price to treat unit vinasse is found to be 2.5 US$/m³ under optimum conditions. FT-IR analysis of sludge obtained shows the results of electro-coagulation process. Ultrafiltration as post treatment experiments showed the enhanced removal efficiency of colour (91%), turbidity (88%) and COD (85%). The results showed that electrocoagulation followed by ultrafiltration is a suitable combined technique to reduce the colour, turbidity and COD from vinasse liquid.