STUDI AWAL PENGOLAHAN LIMBAH CAIR TAPIOKA DENGAN PHOTOKATALITIK MENGGUNAKAN ENERGI SURYA

Abstract

The development of tapioca industry has an impact on the increasing of the organic
wastewater quantity. The  tapioca wastewater has to be pretreated before it thrown away to
the environment. The expensive wastewater treatment process  can be done only by an
establish company, thus small scale industries can not  yet adopt the treatment process
because of    economical reason. If small scale industries are compelled to adopt it, then it
would be a burden for them. In order to solve that problem, it is necessary to develop a new
wastewater treatment process that  is  achievable. One of the alternatif process is
photocatalytic treatment using solar energy. The objective of this research was to find out the
COD descent of the tapioca wastewater,  whereas COD is one of the parameter that can
indicated the pollution level. The type of the research was a simple experimental design which
was “ only control group design†. The experimental variables were time and  TiO2 as the
free variable, COD consentration as the fixed variable, COD initial concentration and the
volume of TiO  solution as the controlled variable. The wastewater  that  was  used in the
research was a synthetic tapioca wastewater. The result of the research was a primer data,
which descriptively, the data showed that  the descent of COD concentration was varried
between 84,1 % to 95,6 %. The highest descent was obtained from the experiment that’s
carried for 180 minutes and the  TiO2 concentration was 0,085%, while the lowest descent
was obtained from the experiment that’s carried for 20 minutes and the  TiO2 concentration
was 0,028%. Analytically, the data were proved normally distributed. Two ways annova test
gave a very significant value of p and α, which are 0,000 and 0,05, respectively. The Dunken
Test was used to find the most effective condition, and we found that 180 minutes  time of
reacion and TiO2 concentration of  0,085% were the most effective condition. Photocatalytic
treatment of tapioca wastewater using solar energy could descent its COD concentration up
to 95,6%.
Key Words : Tapioca wastewater, COD, photocatalytic, sun energy, environmental friendly.