Treatment of tropical peat water in Sarawak peatlands nature reserve by utilising a batch electrocoagulation system
Nazeri Abdul Rahman, Calvin Jose Jol, Allene Albania Linus, Chieng Kwong Ming, Parabi Arif, Nooranisha Baharuddin, Wan Wafi Shahanney Wan Borhan, Nur Syahida Abdul Jalal, Shaleen Nur Ain Samsul, Nurshazatul’aini Abdul Mutalip, Airul Azhar Jitai, Dayang Fadhilatul Aisyah Abang Abdul Hamid
Abstract
Tropical peat water is abundantly available in natural reserve areas, especially on Borneo Island. This water source, however, contains humic substances which are harmful to human health if directly consumed. Although tropical peat water could be treated with conventional treatment, the system possesses drawbacks in terms of debris build-up in pipeline networks. As such, this study aims to develop a standalone electrocoagulation treatment system to treat tropical peat water for domestic consumption in Sarawak natural reserves peatlands. Correspondingly, this study also investigates the effect of electric voltage ranging from 5 V to 30 V and treatment time between 5 min and 30 min on the reduction of humic substances in peat water with electrocoagulation treatment. Subsequent, this study has found that the standalone electrocoagulation treatment system could effectively reduce 97.12% of colour, 95.56% of turbidity, 88.46% of total suspended solids (TSS), 90.00% of total dissolved solids (TDS), and 97.30% of chemical oxygen demand (COD) from peat water at 30 V of electric voltage and 25 minutes of treatment time. These operating conditions generate an adequate production of aluminium hydroxide coagulants to remove humic substances from tropical peat water. The study has noticed that the treated peat water could be utilized as a clean water source owing to the levels of 13 TCU of colour, 2 NTU of turbidity, 3 mg/L of total suspended solids, 2 mg/L of total dissolved solids, and 4 mg/L of chemical oxygen demand have met the Malaysia Class I standard in National Water Quality Standards (NWQS). From the total operating cost analysis conducted, peat water treatment with standalone electrocoagulation system cost only United States Dollars (USD) 0.65 per meter cubic. Overall, this study deduces that a standalone electrocoagulation treatment system could be employed to treat tropical peat water sources in Sarawak natural reserves peatlands.