Abstract:
Understanding the efficiency of different wastewater treatment technologies tested under
real conditions is essential for successful decision making by engineers and managers. In this study,
real poultry slaughterhouse wastewater coming from defeathering, cooling, and evisceration processes
was treated using a lab-scale electrochemical process by use of iron-iron (Fe-Fe), iron-graphite (Fe-Gr)
and aluminum-graphite (Al-Gr) electrode combinations. A water quality index (WQI) was developed
and used as a tool for evaluating and classifying the effectiveness of different electrode combinations.
The Al-Gr electrode combination showed an impressive performance achieving an “excellent” status
for all of the three studied sources of wastewater with a WQI ranging from 13 to 34. The Fe-Gr electrode
combination showed an “excellent” status performance for the wastewater from the cooling process
as classified by the WQI and “good water” class for the defeathering and evisceration processes.
The lower performance, which was highly affected by the increase in turbidity, was observed for the
Fe-Fe electrode combination with a “poor water” status for the wastewater coming from defeathering
and cooling processes and “good water” status for evisceration process.
