Electrocoagulation for industrial wastewater remediation: efficiency, operational optimization, and sustainable implementation

Industrial wastewater often contains high concentrations of organic matter, nutrients, heavy metals, dyes, oils, and emerging contaminants, which pose significant environmental and public health risks. Identifying efficient and scalable treatment technologies has therefore become a priority for industries and regulatory agencies. Electrocoagulation (EC) has emerged as a promising method due to its operational simplicity, reduced chemical reagent requirements, and its ability to generate in situ coagulants that remove diverse pollutants. This review examines the performance, advantages, limitations, and recent advances of EC in treating industrial effluents. A structured literature search was conducted in accordance with PRISMA guidelines in Scopus, using defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. A total of 51 empirical studies published between 2014 and 2025 were analysed, covering more than twelve industrial sectors. The review compares operational parameters, pollutant removal efficiencies, energy consumption, sludge generation, and cost considerations. Results show that EC achieves consistently high removal of colour, turbidity, chemical oxygen demand, nutrients, oils, and metals across multiple industries, often outperforming conventional chemical coagulation. Nevertheless, challenges persist, including electrode passivation, energy demand, lack of standardized operational criteria, and limited pilot- and full-scale applications. Based on the comparative evaluation, the study recommends optimizing current density and pH control, integrating EC with hybrid processes, improving cost-energy models, and promoting industrial-scale demonstrations. These findings provide rese­archers and practitioners with an updated and comprehensive understanding of the potential and limitations of EC for sustainable industrial wastewater treatment.