Abstract

The current work investigated the efficacy of the hybrid treatment process of electrocoagulation and adsorption in removing hydroxyzine (HDZ) from polluted aqueous solutions. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to optimize the oper- ating parameters based on the sub-category of central composite design (CCD). The significance of variables, interactions, and quadratic effects was investigated through analysis of variance (ANOVA). The value of determination coefficient (R2 ), Adjusted R2 (Adj.R2 ) and predicted R2 (Pred.R2 ) were 0.9855, 0.9791, and 0.9743, respectively; also, p-value of P < 0.0001, and F-value of 65.91 were obtained. The obtained results revealed that the removal efficiency of 99.3% and electrical energy consumption of 0.438 kWh m −3 were achieved at the optimum treatment condition of initial HDZ concentration of 25.0 mg L −1 , pH solution of 8.0, the current density of 12.0 mA cm −2 , reaction time of 15.0 min, and chitosan dosage of 0.03 g L −1 . According to the Pareto analysis, the initial HDZ concentration, solution pH, current density, and reaction time’s contribution to the HDZ removal were 22.61%, 38.99%, 19.36%, and 9.43, respectively. Furthermore, the contributions of solution pH and reaction time with the quadratic effects were 3.43% and 6.19%, respectively. Thus, the pH solution revealed the highest contribution to the removal process. Overall, HDZ removal by the hybrid treatment process of EC and AD revealed a good efficiency; also, it can be potentially presented as a promising process for treating polluted water.