Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
  • Publication
    Treatment of synthetic turbid water by using natural tamarind seeds
    ( 2021-05-24) ;
    Othman I.S.
    ;
    ; ;
    Abdullah S.
    This study is done to find the alternatives to solve the water pollution problem. The common ways to treat polluted water is by using alum. However, the usage of alum as conventional coagulant had caused the formation of sludge that can pollute the water and also cause illness. Tamarind seed was chosen as the alternative because it is naturals, non-toxic, and 100% biodegradable sources. In this study, the research was done in two parts, there are tamarind seed extraction by using different extraction solutions and the jar test. The extraction solution that was used were sodium chloride, potassium chloride and distilled water. In jar test, synthetic turbid water with turbidity range from 200 to 220 NTU was used to determine the effectiveness of tamarind seed as natural coagulant. Form the results obtained, sodium chloride extract achieved the highest percentage or turbidity removal with the percentage 91.32% with the dosage 25mg/L at pH 6, while the distilled water extract obtained the lowest percentage of turbidity removal with the percentage 56.60 % with the dosage 30mg/L at pH 3. As a conclusion, tamarind seed can be used as a natural coagulant in the treatment of polluted water.
  • Publication
    A study of liquid-liquid extraction system performance to remove lead from aqueous solution
    Lead (Pb) is one of the top-heavy metal pollutants often encountered in industrial wastewater. The presence of high levels of Pb in the environment may cause long-term health risks to humans. This study was focused on the removal and stripping of lead solution using liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) process. LLE was conducted using three types of extractants with sulphuric acid, H2SO4 as a stripping agent. Experimental parameters studied were types of extractant bis(2-ethylhexyl) phosphate (D2EHPA), trioctylamine (TOA) and tributylphosphate (TBP) and concentration of extractant (0.005, 0.05 and 0.5 M) and types of diluents (kerosene and toluene) respectively. The result indicates that, D2EHPA shows a good performance for removal of Pb compared to TOA and TBP where the highest extraction rate of lead was 93.92 %. Meanwhile, TBP shows the highest stripping rate of lead which is 93.57 %. Kerosene was found to be the best diluent compared to toluene. Overall, the optimum Pb extraction and stripping was obtained at 0.5 M D2EHPA and 0.005 M TBP with 250 rpm stirring speed, 5 min stirring time, 0.5 M H2SO4 and treat ratio 1:1. This LLE process has a good potential to aid in low-cost and environmentally friendly.
  • Publication
    Coagulation-flocculation process for turbidity removal using alum sludge from water treatment plant
    The aim of this research was to utilize alum sludge, also known as water treatment residual (WTR) from water treatment plant for preparing sludge reagent product (SRP) as coagulant in removing turbidity of kaolin suspension and river water. The WTR was characterized by examine the inorganic component (functional group, and surface morphology using X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) respectively. WTR had an amorphous structure and contained high aluminum metal constituents with 35.4 %, which can be recovered as coagulant. Acidification was conducted to recover these aluminium in WTR by using sulphuric acid and produced SRP. The optimum condition of SRP prepared from WTR was evaluated through parameters such as sludge concentration, normality and dosage of acid. It has been observed that 1 % sludge concentration acidified with 0.08 ml/ml sludge and 2.0 N H2SO4 of SRP gave the maximum percentage turbidity removal of 99.46 %. The performance of SRP in coagulation-flocculation process by using a standard jar test was studied based on the effect of pH, kaolin concentration, and SRP dosage. The highest percentage turbidity removal (99.79 %) was obtained at pH 7, kaolin concentration of 800 mg/L, and SRP dosage of 80 mg/L. The SRP performance was also compared to alum coagulant. The percentage turbidity removal of river water for both coagulants were almost similar, with 90.60 % for SRP and 91.18 % for alum respectively. Thus, SRP has the potential to replace commercial coagulant in water treatment plant in terms of costing and sustainability.
  • Publication
    Compost Physical Properties Study on Degradation of Poultry Manure Composting in Closed-Aerated Composter
    A variety of parameters including physical, chemical, and biological properties of different input materials contribute to different composting performance. This study aimed to investigate the compost physical properties (bulk density, porosity, specific surface area and water holding capacity) on the composting process at different initial moisture content (MC). The degradation of total organic carbon (TOC) for the compost inoculated with Bacillus coagulans (BC) and effective microorganism (EM) was determined. The composting materials consisted of 50 % sawdust, 12 % chicken dung and 38 % rice husk with a fixed initial C/N ratio of 30. A closed-aerated composter was fabricated with an optimum air flow rate of 0.3 L/min.kg compost to avoid O2 limitation for 7 d of composting. The compost temperature was recorded to exhibit the active reaction between microorganisms and compost materials will generate a considerable amount of heat. The effect of the initial MC of the compost bed has been intensively investigated with regards to compaction analysis and compost particle for the composting inoculated with BC or EM in an aerated closed-system composter. The results showed that composting using the single strain of BC provides comparable results to that degraded by the commercial mixed culture EM.
      5  19
  • Publication
    Effect of carbonized coconut shell as a filler on tensile properties and water absorptivity of HDPE composite
    Generation of agricultural wastes have detrimental effect to our surrounding especially visual impacts and inefficient land use. Some of these wastes are natural fibers which can be used as potential filler in composite materials. In this study, carbonized coconut shell (CCS) had been utilized as filler and it was incorporated in the high density polyethylene (HDPE) matrix to develop carbonized coconut shell filled HDPE composites. Firstly, the coconut shell powder was treated by sodium hydroxide (NaOH) with the concentration of 1, 3, 5 and 7 wt% for 2 hours. The 7 wt% treated coconut shell revealed better filler properties in the proximate analysis. Next, it was converted into carbonized coconut shell via carbonization process at 600 °C and used as filler in HDPE composites. The carbonized coconut shell filled HDPE composites with different filler loading of 5 to 20 wt% were prepared using extruder at operating conditions of 180 °C at 70 rpm of screw speed. The increase in the filler loading enhanced the tensile strength and the Young’s modulus of the filled HDPE composite. However, the elongation at break of the composite was observed to decrease with an increasing in the filler loading. There are some voids observed in the HDPE/CCS5 composites while good surface adhesion was presented in HDPE/CCS15 composites. The water uptake by the composites was observed to be increased with the filler loading. In conclusion, the optimum filler loading for carbonized coconut shell filled HDPE composites was determined as 15 wt% because it imparts high tensile strength with moderate water absorption properties.
      5  1
  • Publication
    Effectiveness of banana pith as plant based coagulant for river water treatment
    River water pollution is one of the remarkable global issues that cause water crisis worldwide. Coagulation-flocculation treatment is extensively applicable for treating river water. Nonetheless, many developing countries still paying high cost for importing chemical-based coagulant as water treatment agent which is non-environmentally friendly and possess potential hazard to human health. Thus, in this research, banana pith was selected as natural coagulant as alternative material for existing chemical coagulant in river water treatment. Optimum dosage and pH of banana pith in river water treatment was examined through a series of Jar Test experiment. A comparative study on river water treatment from two different sampling sites using banana pith was evaluated in term of the percentage of turbidity and COD removal. The results indicated that the banana pith was able to effectively remove 73.53% and 92.72% of COD and turbidity respectively for Station 2 (Esplanade Pengkalan Asam) at optimum pH of 4 with desired dosage of 6 mg/L. On the contrary, banana pith eliminated 56.03% of COD and 82.80% of turbidity for river water from Station 1(Bukit Lagi) at optimum pH of 4 and dosage of 10 mg/L. Obviously, banana pith can perform well in removing turbidity and COD river water (Station 2) as compared to Station 1 for both parameters. Overall, the finding indicated that the banana pith has a potential and promising alternative natural coagulant in future for replacing commercial coagulant used in river water treatment.
      2  5
  • Publication
    Synthesis and characterization of carboxymethyl cellulose derived from office paper waste for methylene blue dye removal
    The aim of this research was to extract cellulose from office paper waste and converted into carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) based flocculant to treat methylene blue (MB) dye solution. The yield of extracted cellulose obtained was 62.17%. Three different CMC samples were prepared. Degree of substitution (DS) for CMC-1 is 0.6585, CMC-2 is 0.8124 and CMC-3 is 0.8946. This proved that CMC are substituted into cellulose structure due to the DS of the commercial CMC are in the range of 0.4 to 1.5. The coagulation flocculation process of the MB dye shows that the CMC-3 was effective for methylene blue dye removal with highest percentage (98.14%) at pH 9.0, flocculant dosage of 210 ppm with 100 ppm MB concentration solution.
      1  10
  • Publication
    Ammonium adsorption-desorption by using rice straw biochar
    Rice straw was utilized into biochar by pyrolysis and used as adsorbent for ammonium removal. Rice straw biochar was found as one of the adsorbents for wastewater treatment. This study was conducted to analyses the capability of rice straw biochar on ammonium adsorption-desorption. Rice straw biochar was characterized by ash content, moisture content analysis, Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) analysis and pH of Zero Point Charge. Ash content increased meanwhile moisture content decreased as pyrolysis temperature increased. pH of Zero Point Charge for rice straw biochar was at pH 7.5. The rice straw produced at 550 °C was selected as best adsorbent for the adsorption of ammonium. The effect of process parameters such as adsorbent dosage, adsorption contact time, initial concentration and pH of ammonium were studied on the performance of ammonium adsorption. The results showed that maximum ammonium adsorption capacity was occurred at pH 7.5 by using 0.05 g of rice straw biochar in 3.0 ppm of ammonium solution for 130 minutes of contact time. Kinetic adsorption showed pseudo-second order is the best kinetic adsorption because involving a chemical adsorption as the value of R2 which was 0.9163 closer to 1. The adsorption-desorption of ammonium shown that rice straw biochar can run up to 5 cycles.
      1  5
  • Publication
    Surface Water Treatment with Natural Starches as Coagulant via Coagulation Process
    In this study, natural polymers in the forms of starch from sago and tapioca were used as coagulant. The removal of turbidity and chemical oxygen demand (COD) using coagulation process from river water was examined. The treatment on the river water sample was evaluated via a series of Jar Test experimental works with rapid mixing speed of 120 rpm for 1 minute, slow mixing speed of 30 rpm for 20 minutes and settling time of 60 minutes. The tapioca starch removed 93.7% of turbidity at dosage of 1000 mg/L. While, sago starch successfully removed 96.4% of turbidity under optimum dosage of 2000 mg/L. pH 12 was optimum pH for turbidity removal by using sago and tapioca starch whereas the highest percentage of COD removal occurred at pH 4 using sago and tapioca starch. At pH 4, tapioca and sago starch removed 22.5% and 25% of COD respectively. Overall tapioca starch showed better removal percentage of turbidity compared to sago starch throughout the experiment study. Generally, the usage of natural polymers as coagulants is good for turbidity removal; however, it did not work well on COD removal.
      17  1