The separation of emulsions or colloidal particles from wastewater is a major concern for the petroleum, metal manufacturing, food, textile, paper and hydrometallurgy industries. The emulsion present is very stable due to the presence of surfactants, so conventional methods can not be applied and it is necessary to combine one or two treatment processes for highly effective purification. Several techniques have been applied to treat these types of oily wastewater, e.g.: chemical, biological and electrochemical destabilization, ultrafiltration. Electrocoagulation is initiated by the oxidation of sacrificial anodes. The metal ions released combine to the hydroxyl ions produced at the cathode to form the corresponding metal hydroxides and others species, which cause the destabilization of the contaminants or particulate suspensions and form flocs. The bubbles hydrogen gas capturing and floating the flocs formed and separating from the liquid surface by scraping or settling depending on density of the flocs. In this work, the electrocoagulation technique was studied in order to treat concentrated oil-water emulsions chemically stabilized. This study was mainly focused on the effects of operating parameters such as: initial pH, current density, reaction time, NaCl concentration, electrode distance and inlet concentration on the abatement rate of chemical oxygen demand (COD). The synthetic emulsion was prepared from Shell - Talpa 30 oil (3g.L-1) and sodium dodecyl sulfate (1.0 g.L-1), also was added NaCl (3g L-1) for increasing the conductivity of the emulsion. Under those conditions we had a pH value around 8.70 and a zeta potential around -70mV, showing a good stability of the emulsion.