Ability of Ceramic Tiles Waste as a Pre-treatment for Laundry Wastewater

Abstract

The discharge of laundry of laundry wastewater (LWW) into rivers contaminates the water and exposes it to harmful chemicals present in detergents and fabric softeners. This draws attention to the need to implement treatment for LWW. This study focused on determining the ability of ceramic tiles to remove total phosphorus (TP) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) from commercial LWW. The coarse aggregate of ceramic tile waste (CTW) was used as the adsorbent. The effectiveness of CTW as an adsorbent to remove TP and COD in LLW was determined by using different adsorbent dosages, contact times, and shaking speeds in a batch experiment. LWW samples were collected from the discharged point of commercial laundry shop. The results revealed that the highest TP removal was 71% with a dosage of 6 g/100 ml ceramic adsorbent, a contact time of 90 minutes, and a shaking speed of 100 rpm. Meanwhile, the highest removal of COD was 80% at a dosage of 6 g/100 mL of ceramic adsorbent, a contact time of 90 minutes, and a shaking speed of 300 rpm. The optimal value of removal for COD 60 mg/L and TP is 1.79 mg/L while pH value is 7.13. Thus, it can be concluded that the CTW aggregate as an adsorbent was effective in reducing TP and COD from LWW.