A Novel and Sustainable Approach in Treating Restaurant Wastewater with Kapok Fiber through a Compact Biodegradable Oil Absorption Filter System

• Main Author: Turunawarasu, Dhanaraj
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS 2012
• Subjects: TP Chemical technology
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/10122/1/2011%20-%20A%20Novel%20and%20Sustainable%20Approach%20in%20Treating%20Restaurant%20Wastewater%20with%20Kapok%20Fiber%20Throug.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/10122/

Restaurant typically discharges fats, oil and grease (FOG) as well as surfactant ( dishwashing detergent) - containing wastewater directly into the waterways that is generated by their daily kitchen activities, for which there is currently no acceptable technology due to its high capital cost, large space requirement to operate, extensive maintenance activities requirement, possesses detrimental hazard to the environment and fail to remove FOG to meet discharge standards. As a result, oil sorption efficiency and hydrophobic-oleophilic characteristics of an agricultural product, Kapok (Cieba pentandra) will be thoroughly examined in this paper for its feasibility as an absorbent medium in order to treat restaurant wastewater where the aim is to develop a compact biodegradable absorption filter. The objective of this project is to; (I) Study the effect of various packing densities of Kapok filter and inlet flow rate on the cooking oil absorption efficiency and outlet flow rate, (2) To design a compact biodegradable oil absorption filter based on the chosen packing density to curb the current problem faced in restaurant wastewater and (3) To study the effect of cooking oil and surfactant concentrations on the filtrate turbidity and filtration efficiency. Based on the results obtained, the best possible packing density that should be applied for the Kapok filter design under gravitational pressure gradient would be 0.02 g/cm3 since it contributes to better outlet flow rate, high filtration efficiency (96%) with the least filtrate turbidity and has larger size of the effective flow channel and area to entrap the emulsified oil. Based on UV Spectrometer test, the result shows that the surfactant could not be separated from the water-surfactant mixture. However, with the presence of surfactant in water-oil mixture the kapok filter system is capable to separate oil efficiently as surfactant enable to break oil molecules to smaller suspended droplets (emulsion) which results in higher filtration efficiency. Kapok has shown a great potential as an natural oil sorbent in treating restaurant wastewater (FOG) due the fact that it is hydrophobicoleophilic in nature.