Treatment of domestic wastewater phosphate by electrocoagulation using Fe and Al electrodes: A comparative study

•Al electrode required lesser metal-to-phosphorous mole ratio than Fe electrode.•Al electrode provided a higher phosphorous removal efficiency than Fe electrode.•Phosphate removal greatly increased with increase of current density and EC time.•The experimental electrode consumptions were greater than the theoretical values.•Effluent pH increased with increase in electrocoagulation time. In this work, phosphorus removal from domestic wastewater was studied through electrocoagulation (EC) using iron (Fe) and aluminium (Al) anodes in a batch EC reactor. Key parameters investigated include; initial pH, initial phosphorus concentration (Ci), reaction time, current density (j), metal-to-phosphorous ratio, charge loading (q) and electrode type. The Al/P mole ratio at current densities of 10, 20, 30 and 40A/m2 was obtained as 0.84, 1.68, 0.95 and 0.77, respectively, while the Fe/P mole ratio for these current densities was calculated as 1.81, 3.29, 4.09 and 4.48, respectively. The optimums to obtain