Electrostatic separation of biowaste: An approach for landfills reduction in Malaysia

Abstract

Leachate and methane production due to the landfilling of biowaste has become an environmental threat. This study targets to investigate the extractability of biowaste from waste mixture as an approach of reduction of solid waste and landfill. A statistical analysis was conducted to analyze the performance of electrostatically waste separation. Individual and interactive effects of independent factors, namely rotation speed; electrical potential and electrodes interval on separation efficiency were assessed. Optimal operational conditions were deduced as 60 rpm rotation speed, 30 kV supply potential and 54 mm electrodes interval. Under these conditions, biowaste separation efficiency of 83.88% was experimentally achieved. Separation efficiency of non-biowaste was 89.51% under same operational condition. These results fitted well with the predicted model. Results in this study conclude the electrostatic separation could be an effective pre-treatment alternative in dealing with leachate and methane problems of landfilled biowaste.