Photodegradation of different wastewater using modified fibrous silica (KCC-1) catalysts under different duration time

Abstract

Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) commonly found in industrial wastewater have an ability to bio-accumulate and bio-magnify naturally which make it resistance towards simple chemical and biological degradation processes. Example of commonly found POPs are polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs), aliphatic or heterocyclic compound, etc. Therefore, photodegradation had become the alternative in treating industrial wastewater containing POP. Textile industry uses raw materials from animal fibres such as silk and wool and also from synthetic materials such as acrylics, nylon or polyester that contains formaldehyde which will affect human’s stimulus and mucous membrane. It is compulsory for the formaldehyde to be eliminated before being discharge into the environment. In the other hand, POMSE is a biological treated wastewater from palm oil mill effluent (POME) that still have high turbidity level and able to induce eutrophication. The pollutant content in POMSE come from a non-humic organic matter that come from organisms. The objectives of this research are to formulate ZnO-KCC-1 nanoparticles via precipitation method as well as to investigate the photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutant in POMSE and textile wastewater under different duration time via ZnO-KCC-1. Last but no least is to elucidate the kinetic study of photocatalytic degradation activity of organic pollutant by using synthesized ZnO-KCC-1 catalyst. ZnO-KCC-1 have the ability to reduce 30.77% colour intensity of POMSE at 15 minutes and reduced 40.82% colour intensity in textile wastewater. Besides, the use of ZnO-KCC-1 also reduce the DO consumption into 12.09% in POMSE and only 20.88% DO was consumed in textile wastewater. This proved that ZnO-KCC-1 have the ability to become one of the future alternatives photocatalyst in photodegradation of industrial wastewater due to its promising abilities in reducing the colour intensity, turbidity, COD and BOD of the wastewater.