STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF FILTER MEDIA RECYCLABILITY ON THE QUALITY OF TREATED WATER

• Main Author: BENEDICT ANAK JERRY, -
• Format: Final Year Project Report
• Language: English; English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak 2022
• Subjects: TP Chemical technology
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/39367/1/FYP_Benedict%20Anak%20Jerry%20-%20%2024pages.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/39367/3/Benedict%20Anak%20Jerry%20-%20%20fulltext.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/39367/

Population growth, urbanization, industry, and irrigation agriculture have all caused the rise in the need for treated water resources. In addition, there is a shortage of treated water for potable water use where treated water is also used for non-drinking purposes. Most water sources in Sarawak are severely affected due to aquaculture, household sewage, and fertilizers from agricultural activities, all of which contribute to the increase in solid waste and suspended chemicals. These factors have contributed to the reduction of river water quality in Malaysia, especially in Sarawak. The presence of contaminants in water leads to the critical need for an efficient water filtration process. The project studies the water quality parameters of different water sources such as rivers, lakes, rainwaters, etc. The water quality parameters can be categorized mainly into three main categories which are physical (turbidity), chemical (pH, hardness, BOD, COD, TSS, iron concentration, copper concentration, and manganese concentration), and biological (E. coli) properties. The separate filter media filtration system was used to study the media performance. It was found out that the silica sand 0.6mm media were effective for turbidity, TSS, hardness, and BOD reduction. Apart from that, the activated carbon was efficient for E. coli treatment, whereas the zeolite media was better in pH and COD removal. On the other hand, most filter media managed to treat a water sample to comply with the raw water quality standard after the first cycle except for COD and BOD treatment. Lastly, this study shows the operating conditions and the quality of treated water for all media have a very high negative correlation, where the overall water quality decreases as the filtration cycle increases. Therefore, the improvement of the existing filter media must be implemented by studying the appropriate water treatment cycle process to improve the quality of treated water in meeting the requirement set by the Department of Environment Malaysia.