Reduction of Microplastic in Wastewater Via Electrocoagulation Process

Abstract

In recent years, microplastic has become an emerging contaminant that has endangered the ecosystem and public health. This environmental issue has been discovered in the atmosphere, soil, and water bodies. These sources of pollutants can be either primary or secondary. The primary sources of microplastic are the clothing and cosmetic industry, plastic manufacturing plants, fishing businesses, shipping lines, sewage treatment plants, car tires and air blasting. Moreover, microplastic emission from secondary sources involves degrading large plastic particles to smaller elements under mechanical fragmentation and ultraviolet. Microplastic can be defined as plastic particles of different shapes that are less than 5mm. It can be denoted that this microplastic has been detected in the wastewater effluent and needs to be sufficiently removed from the conventional methods. Therefore, this research aims to determine the reduction rate of microplastic in wastewater via the electrocoagulation process. The wastewater effluent was taken from the wastewater treatment plant, Universiti Teknologi MARA Campus Dengkil. The characteristics of the wastewater effluent have been determined for biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), ammonia-nitrogen, total suspended solids (TSS), turbidity and E.coli. The microplastic employed in the experiment was polystyrene (PS). A duration of 60 and 120 minutes were taken to reduce the PS. Additionally, the analysis using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) has been done to observe the chemical structure of the PS polymer. The results showed that the maximum percentage of reduction for COD was 100%, TSS with a value of 80%, ammonia-nitrogen of 98% and turbidity of 46%. Besides, the removal of PS has achieved 82% using this technique. It can be found that electrocoagulation can be a promising method for reducing the microplastic in the water environment, especially in the wastewater treatment plant.