Treatment of biodiesel wastewater using ferric chloride and ferric sulfate

The production of biodiesel through the transesterification method produces a large amount of wastewater that contains high level of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and oil and grease. In this study, coagulation was adopted to treat the biodiesel wastewater. Two types of coagulants were examined using standard jar test apparatus, i.e. ferric chloride and ferric sulfate. The effects of pH and coagulant dosage were examined at 150 rpm of rapid mixing and 20 rpm slow mixing and 30 min settling time, higher removal of SS (over 80%), colour (over 80%), COD (over 50%) and Oil and Grease (over 90%) were achieved at pH 6. Ferric Chloride was found to be superior was observed at reasonable lower amount of coagulant i.e. 300 mg/L. The result indicated that coagulation and flocculation process had contributed bigger roles in integrated treatment system

Feasibility of banana (Musa sapientum) trunk biofibres for treating kitchen wastewater

Kitchen wastewater that is discharged to the environment is one of the contributing factors to water pollution in Malaysia and other developing countries. Various techniques have been employed to remove the pollutants namely, physical, chemical and biological treatment. Biosorption is one of the biological treatments that has emerged as a new technology for the removal and recovery of pollutants, which is more environmental friendly. This study focuses on the effectiveness of the kitchen wastewater treatment systems using low-cost natural fibre of banana trunk (Musa sapientum) as biofibre to remove COD, ammonia nitrogen, suspended solids, turbidity, colour, and oil and grease from kitchen wastewater. The optimum adsorption capacities of banana trunk biofibres were investigated under several conditions, namely, pH, absorbent dosage, speed and contact time. The optimum pH was found to be 6. The experimental results obtained were satisfactory at a dosage of 2 g at 150 rpm. The banana fibres show satisfactory COD removal of 88%, ammonia nitrogen of 84%, suspended solids of 83%, turbidity of 75%, the colour of 67% and oil and grease of 68% respectively. Maximum removal was achieved at 2 hours contact time. The study reveals that the banana fibres could be acceptable for efficient removal of organics and nutrients present in the kitchen wastewater