A Column Study on The Efficiency and Reusability of Kapok Fibre as Car Wash Wastewater Treatment

The car washing industry which consumes large amount of water produces Car Wash Wastewater (CWW) which were likely to exceeds the standard set in both Malaysia's and Singapore's regulation. Kapok Fibre (KF) is a natural adsorbing material which have large lumen and low density is believed to be able to act as an adsorbent to manage the CWW. This study was done to determine the characteristic of KF and CWW and investigate the efficiency of KF in treating CWW along with the reusability of KF through a column study with Organic Loading Rate (OLR) of 12.41g COD/L.day. The CWW contains a certain concentration of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD, Oil and Grease (O&G), and Anionic Surfactant (AS) though the interaction between KF and AS is novel. KF found out to has the capability in removing COD, O&G, and AS up to 88.37%, 100%, and 83.8% respectively. However, in reusability experiment there is limitation to KF in which by exceeding the operation time to 600 minutes of treatment, the efficiency in removing COD, O&G, and AS were found to drop to 62.02%, 75%, and 55% respectively. This shows that KF could be an avant-garde, low-cost sustainable treatment to treat CWW instead of the conventional high cost and complex operating system. (paper)