Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

In treating wastewater, one of the most important part is the biological treatment. In today’s

rising demand for effective wastewater treatment methods, electro-fenton is one of the

forerunners when it comes to removing organic chemicals present in the water. The efficiency of

electron is highly dependent on the following parameters: concentration of hydrogen peroxide

used, the ratio of ferrous to hydrogen peroxide, reaction time, nature of the organic compound

present, temperature of water, etc. Due to the fact that the efficiency of the process is depended

on wide set of parameters, it is difficult to economical optimize the use of the process. Albeit

several studies attempted to evaluate the performance of electro-fenton, it only encompasses

limited range of conditions. The availability of experimental data from the previous studies has

been highly constricted that even existing mathematical models can only make short range of

reliable and accurate prediction. Moreover, existing studies that attempted to use mathematical

models in evaluating the performance utilized data that was established under the same paper

through experiment- which implies that there is no established compiled data of the parameters.

A tabulated summary of parameters could create easier access in using mathematical models for

performance evaluation. But, even existing computational models that was utilized in published

studies can only incorporate limited parameters- which adds to the factors creating a less

accurate prediction performance of the process.

Current trend in predicting the performance of electro-fenton process is collecting data through

actual experiment, which encompasses several parameters, and incorporating it to data of

parameters in previous studies using existing models. This kind of study allows for expansion of
available data that can be used in pending studies. It is also the trending process in establishing

new models, utilizing original data and incorporating established ones. New models being

published ranges from creating more efficient and accurate models to models that can

incorporate more parameters for evaluation.

The objective of the study is to gather established data relating to parameters that directly affects

the performance of electro-fenton process in treating hazardous contaminants in water. Using the

data collected, run the data in artificial neural network and create weights and biases in the

program through training. Using the obtained values, examine the training result report –

depending on the quality of the results make an optional fine-tuning. And finally, use the set-up

to make an accurate and reliable prediction of the performance based on input parameters- using

artificial neural network.

The goal of the study is to make accurately reliable prediction of electro-fenton performance.

Using the program set-up created, accurate forecast of the process efficiency can be determined

using different sets of parameters under wide range of system conditions. Therefore, optimizing

the utilization of the technique in the industry. This will be a future sustainable approach in

applying the process in the industry both economically and environmentally.

The study will be concerned on evaluating the performance of the treatment process using

advance mathematical computation in the form of ANN. Albeit the prediction of the performance

will be highly dependent on the stated parameters, the study will not cover the thorough analysis

as to how the parameters affect the overall and final prediction. Also, the study will only be
utilizing data established in existing published papers- creating compiled data used in different

studies.