Treatment of Wastewater Contaminated with Engine Oil using Biomass Absorbent Material

Abstract

This research aimed to study the characteristics of biomass sorbents and compare the efficiency of the treatment of wastewater contaminated with engine oil using leaves and stems of napier grass and vetiver grass at the various sizes of 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 millimeter, respectively. The wastewater contaminated with engine oil was pumping at a flow rate of 25 milliliter per minute pass through a column with a diameter of 1.3 centimeter packed bed with biomass absorbent material with the mass of 2 gram and the bed length of 10 centimeter. The sampling of wastewater contaminated with engine oil passed through biomass absorbent material was collected after 6 hours. The results demonstrated that the absorbent characteristics of the leaves of both types of grasses were able to yield more biomass absorbent material than the stems and the vetiver grass can yield more biomass material than the napier grass. When treating wastewater contaminated with engine oil by using absorbents made from leaves and stems of napier grass and vetiver grass at the sizes of 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 millimeter, respectively, the temperature was in the range of 24.25-32.15°C. The pH were in the range of 7.73-8.35 with no total suspended solids had been detected, indicated that all sorbents were able to treat all total suspended solids exceptionally well. The napier grass was able to remove engine oil and COD better than vetiver grass. The 0.5 millimeter of napier grass stem has the highest engine oil removal efficiency equivalent to 15.92 mg/L (72.53 %). The napier grass leaves at the size of 0.5 millimeter has the highest COD removal efficiency at 71.67 mg/L (40.95%). While the leaves of vetiver grass at the size of 2.0 millimeter has the highest engine oil removal efficiency at 9.39 mg/L (66.60%). The vetiver grass leaves at the size of 0.5 millimeter has the highest COD removal efficiency at 68.8 mg/L (41.75%).