(488d) A Novel and Sustainable Approach in Treating Restaurant Wastewater with Kapok Fiber

Restaurant typically discharges fats, oil and grease (FOG) as well as surfactant (dishwashing detergent) that is generated by their daily kitchen activities directly into the waterways. The wastewater discharged from the restaurant has raised the concern on water pollution. However, current methods available to treat such wastewater have several setbacks such as high capital cost, large space requirement to operate, extensive maintenance activities and failure to remove FOG to meet discharge standards. In this study, oil sorption efficiency and hydrophobic-oleophilic characteristics of an agricultural product, Kapok (Ciebapentandra) was thoroughly examined for its feasibility as an absorbent medium to treat restaurant wastewater. The objectives are to evaluate the effect of various packing densities of kapok filter on the outlet flow rate and on the cooking oil absorption efficiency. The results were later used to design a compact biodegradable oil absorption filter to remove FOG as well as on the surfactant concentrations in oil emulsion. Based on the results obtained, the best packing density for the Kapok filter design under gravitational pressure gradient is 0.02 g/cm3 since it contributes to better outlet flow rate, high filtration efficiency (96%) with the least filtrate turbidity and has larger size of the effective flow channel and area to entrap the emulsified oil. Based on UV Spectrometer analysis, the result shows that the surfactant could not be separated from the water-surfactant mixture. However, the presence of surfactant in water-oil mixture does not affect the efficiency of kapok filter system. These results suggest that kapok fibers are very effective to be used as a biodegradable oil sorbent filtration system to treat restaurant wastewater (FOG), due the fact that it is hydrophobic-oleophilic in nature.