FABRICATION OF NANOZEOLITE AND ITS UTILIZATION IN THE ADSORPTION OF NICKEL AND CHROMIUM IONS FROM ELECTROPLATING WASTE

• Main Author: ANUGRAH PRATAMA (NIM : 12508021), MUKHLAS
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/23364
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Zeolites are one of the most abundant industrial minerals in Indonesia. It can be used as natural adsorbent thus allowing to be utilized in an alternative process of industrial waste that generally contains hazardous materials and toxic (B3) such as electroplating industrial waste. This research aim improving the quality of zeolite by reducing its size to nanosize particles / nanozeolite and then using it to reduce the ions content of nickel and chromium on electroplating wastewater. Size reduction into nanozeolite was carried out gradually using ring mill and Planetary Ball Mill (PBM). Dry and wet milling conditions were used to observe the effect of reduction size in milling time. Nanozeolite produced was then compared with micrometer-sized zeolite in adsorption capacity for nickel and chromium ions on electroplating wastewater. Adsorption was performed in glass breaker with a stir bar as the agitator media. Stirring duration and the amount of zeolite used were varied. Stirring durations were 15, 30, 45, and 60 minutes while the amount of zeolites used were 0.5, 0.75, 1, and 1.25 grams. The filtrate from filtering process were analyzed using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry (AAS) to determine the percent adsorption of nickel and chromium by micrometer-sized zeolite and nanozeolite. The experiment results showed that 120.7 nm nanozeolite could be produced by milling using PBM in wet conditions for 6 hours with 1500 rpm of mill. Nanozeolite showed better adsorption capacity and shorter time to achieve highest percent adsorption compared with micrometer-sized zeolite. The higher amount of zeolite used increased the percent adsorption. The time required to achieve highest adsorption percentage of nanozeolite was 15 minutes. The highest percent adsorption in this study was 88.3% for nickel ions and 82.5% for chromium ions, which was achieved with 1.25 grams nanozeolite for 25 mL of waste water stirred for 15 minutes.