The objective of this study was to investigate the possibility of heavy metals (copper, zinc and nickel) removal from the waste fountain solution by the electrocoagulation/flotation (ECF) treatment. After the printing process, the fountain solution changes its composition due to direct contact with different printing materials (plates, inks, etc.) and becomes enriched with metals. The effect of operational parameters, such as electrode materials and combinations, current density, interelectrode distance and operating time, was studied. Also, response surface methodology (RSM) was applied to evaluate the effect of main operational variables and to get a balanced removal efficiency of metals from waste fountain solution by ECF treatment. The iron/iron electrode combination yields a higher percentage of copper and zinc removal efficiency (>95% and >80%, respectively), while for nickel the aluminum/iron and iron/aluminum electrode combinations (>95 and >85%, respectively) proved to be more successful. The optimum interelectrode distance was 1.0 cm (for copper) and 1.5 cm (for zinc and nickel) for all current densities. Heavy metal removal efficiency increases with the increase of electrolysis time for all electrode combinations. Also, the increase of current density improves the ECF removal efficiency. Based on the results obtained through RSM, the optimized parameters for the ECF waste fountain solution treatment for metal removal were identified as: Fe(-)/Al(+) electrode with interelectrode distance of 1.5 cm, operating time of 60 min and current density of 8 mA cm(-2). Overall, the ECF treatment was proven very efficient in the removal of heavy metals from the waste fountain solution under optimum conditions. (C) 2014 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.