THE EFFECT OF TOP-LOADING WASHING MACHINE OPERATIONAL SETTING ON MICROPLASTIC FIBERS RELEASED FROM CLOTH DURING THE WASHING PROCESS AND FILTERED BY FILTER CLOTH

• Main Author: Farid, Muh.
• Format: Theses
• Language: Indonesia
• Subjects: Teknik saniter dan perkotaan; teknik perlindungan lingkungan
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/80381
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Microplastics have been commonly found in wastewater, especially from laundry waste and wastewater treatment. Efforts to prevent microplastics in domestic washing activities are important so that microplastics can be removed from the source. The washing machine filters can collect most of the microplastic fibers before the water reaches the WWTP. The research carried out aimed to determine the effect of washing machine spin speed, operating time, and the washing cycles of textile materials on the microplastics released during the washing process as well as the influence of filter cloth porosity, operating time, and the washing cycles of textile materials on the filter cloth's ability in the filtering process of microplastic. There are three main stages in this research, the preparation stage, the research stage which consists of running the reactor to identify microplastics released during the washing process, running the reactor to determine the ability of the filter cloth to filter microplastics, and identifying microplastics. The data generated from the test is analyzed using a regression multiple linear. The results of identifying the amount of microplastic released from all samples had an average concentration of 281.24 particles/L and the average amount of microplastic filtered by the filter cloth was 78.8 mg/cycle. Spin speed, operating time, and washing cycles simultaneously influence the released microplastics by 93.5%. The filter cloth porosity, operating time, and washing cycles simultaneously influence the filtered microplastics by 86.4%.