The main objective of this study is to investigate the effects of AC and DC on the removal of cadmium from water using zinc as anode and as cathode. Various operating parameters on the removal efficiency of cadmium were investigated, such as initial cadmium ion concentration, initial pH, current density and temperature. The results showed that the removal efficiency of 97.8% and 96.9% with the energy consumption of 0.665 and 1.236 kWh/m(3) was achieved at a current density of 0.2 A/dm(2) and pH of 7.0 using zinc as electrodes using AC and DC, respectively. For both AC and DC, the adsorption of cadmium was preferably fitting Langmuir adsorption isotherm, the adsorption process follows second order kinetics and the temperature studies showed that adsorption was exothermic and spontaneous in nature. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.