Lake Water Quality Improvement by Using Waste Mussel Shell Powder as an Adsorbent

Abstract

Lake water in UTHM was slightly greenish in color indicating the eutrophication process. Eutrophication problem is due to excessive amount of nutrient in the lake water which causes nuisance growth of algae and other aquatic plant. The improvement of lake water quality should be conducted wisely in preventing from eutrophication problem by using a suitable water treatment method. Natural materials, agricultural wastes and industrial wastes are locally available sources can be utilized as low-cost adsorbents. The natural abundant source of waste mussel’s shells is advantages to use as basis material to produce the low cost adsorbent for water treatment. Batch experiments were carried out with the preparation 500 ml volume of lake water sample with the dosage of 2.5g, 7.5g and 12.5g. Then the solution shaking in an incubator with 200 rpm shaking speed. The various dosage of mussel shell greatly affected pollutants removal. Both of NH4+ and PO43- have a higher percentage removal with 31.28% and 21.74% at the 7.5g of sample dosage. Other parameters such as COD and TSS also shown good percentage of removal at 7.5g of dosage sample with 44.45% and 25% respectively. While, dosage at 2.5g was performed as a good adsorption capacity of NH4+, PO43-, COD and TSS as high as 0.142, 0.234, 7.6 and 20 mg/g, respectively. These experimental results suggested that the use of mussel shell powder as good basis material in removing pollutants from lake water.