Treatment of microplastics in tannery wastewater using a Hybrid fenton–electrocoagulation–electroflocculation process

ABSTRACT Tannery effluents, distinguished by the substantial presence of polymeric finishing chemicals and additives, have become a global environmental issue which is becoming more worse by the fact that microplastics (MPs) are found in many other types of industrial waste. This research concentrates on the advancement and refinement of a sustainable hybrid treatment method that combines Fenton oxidation with Electrocoagulation-Electroflocculation (EC-EF). The objective is to get effective elimination of MPs found in tannery wastewater. Batch tests employed using aluminum electrodes as the primary sacrificial material for systematic parametric optimization like varying current densities, pH, inter-electrode distances, and agitation rates to carefully investigate the influence of each functional parameter on microplastic elimination. While zinc electrodes additionally evaluated for comparative energy efficiency assessment. The hybrid system demonstrated a maximum microplastic removal efficiency of 98.9% from synthetic wastewater and 95.1% from real tannery wastewater when conditions were optimized (current density 3 mA cm -2 , pH 7.2, IED 0.5 cm, 450 rpm). FT-IR and XRD provided confirmation of oxidation-induced potential fragmentation and the surface modification and loss of polymer crystallinity, while SEM illustrated the surface erosion and aggregation of the degraded particles. The kinetic analysis followed a pseudo-first-order model (R 2 = 0.9989), which indicates surface-controlled adsorption and flocculation mechanisms. The specific energy consumption was low (0.66-0.69 kWh m-3), indicating that the developed process could be a cost-effective for MPs removal. Therefore, this work establishes a novel resource-efficient hybrid electrochemical system for the remediation of MP from industrial wastewater. The process ensures high removal and elimination of MPs with a practical pathway for scaling up toward circular economy of leather industry and other polymer industries.