Arango Ruiz, Álvaro de Jesús2012-03-292012-03-292012-03-291909-0455http://hdl.handle.net/10567/130Introduction. Food, pharmaceutical ad cosmetics industries produce waste water that go to watercourses after a poor treatment or even with no treatment at all. That water contains toxic substances such as artificial dyes, which are harmful for the environment. A reduction of dissolved oxygen, eutrophication, forming of recalcitrant, toxic compounds for cells and obstruction of the sunlight required for photosyntesis in water bodies are among the most important effects caused by these substances. Electrocoagulation is a technology that has been being developed in recent years and represents an alternative for these industries´ waste water treatment having several comparative advantages if compared to traditional technologies. Objective. To study the removal of azoic tartrazine dye from aqueous solutions, by the use of electrocoagulation with iron and aluminum electrodes. Materials an methods. Synthetic waste water with a 100mg/L of tartrazine was treated with electrocoagulation. For this purpose, a 3x2x3 factorial experimental model was tested, with the following factors: pH, current density and treatment time. The response variables measured were around 95,5% and those of the color, around 99,4% at a 4 pH, current density 43,23 A/m2 and 12 minutes of treatment. Conclusion. This study´s results establish that, from a technical point of view, electrocoagulation is a technique that can be used to remove color from aqueous solutions of tartrazine.esElectrocoagulaciónTartrazinaCorporación Universitaria LasallistaÁrea Metropolitana del Valle de AburráAguas residualesTratamiento de aguas residualesAguas residuales industrialesContaminaciónArticle