DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF LABORATORY-SCALE WATER TREATMENT UNIT USING SAND AND SHEA NUT SHELL ACTIVATED CARBON AS RENEWABLE RESOURCES

Abstract

The increasing demand for clean and safe water necessitates the exploration of innovative and sustainable solution. Hence, the study aims to design and develop an engineering innovation of a simple laboratory-scale water treatment unit for practical purposes. The research concept was based on sedimentation-filtration-adsorption treatment system. The design assumed unit capacity of 50 litres in batches with assumed retention time of 30 minutes. The unit is driven by gravity with the calculated flow rate of 0.1 m³/hr. For effective gravity settling of flocs, the active sedimentation zone was assigned 75% of the total volume capacity and sludge sump storage volume of 15%, while the remaining 10% were allocated for freeboard. The media elements were slow sand and shea nut shell activated carbon (SNSAC) materials carefully selected based on the objective of the unit. The hydraulic loading rate of 0.35 m/hr was used, and the surface area of 0.0059 m² was evaluated. Also, the media depth of 0.25 m was considered producing headloss of 0.004 m. In calculating for the empty bed contact time (EBCT), the volume of SNSAC was calculated and 6 minutes was obtained. The design produced an active sedimentation tank and a sludge sump with appropriate dimension, parameters and specification. In conclusion, the study is in agreement with the basis of geometric, kinematic, and residence time similarities, a physical process that governed and dominated by internal flow routing, low velocity, gravity-driven flow and possible media interaction. And then recommended the workshop production development of the unit.