| Summary: | The microbubbles produced during electrocoagulation (EC) are important as they attract colloids, destabilise to flocculate, and carry them up to the surface, where they can be easily removed. The structure of the flocs continuously changes throughout the different stages of flocculation. Therefore, although the mechanisms of electrolytic microbubble adhesion and flotation warrant closer examination, not many studies have examined them. As such, the present study compared the structure and chemical composition of flocs formed via EC with stationary electrode plates (SEPs) and vibrating electrode plates (VEPs) under constant parameters of current intensity (CI)=4.5A, reaction time (t)=50 minutes, pH=5, VEPs=2.8V, and SEPs=0V. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy, and fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy were used to compare the characteristics of the flocs’ structure. The SEM images provided detailed visualisations of the flocs’ morphology, specifically, that the structure of the flocs produced via VEPs were denser and more intricate. This could be because the higher mechanical energy was more effective at particle destabilisation and aggregation. The EDX results were significant for EC using VEPs and SEPs for carbon (C), oxygen (O), sodium (Na), chlorine (Cl), and potassium (K). Higher concentrations of aluminium (Al) were detected post-VEP as agitation helps the aggregated flocs to float to the surface of the solution. Lastly, the results of the FTIR analysis indicate the presence of functional groups related to organic and inorganic constituents in the leachate. In overall, this study is reported that VEPs undergoes better results in comparison to SEPs due to pollutant particles are easily to be removed by achieving optimum parameters has been applied in this study. © 2024 Institute of Physics Publishing. All rights reserved.
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