Effect of GO/chitosan coated sand in enhancing water filtration

Petroleum and chemical industry is a field that unavoidably generates a large volume of oily wastewater. This condition causes the field as one of the field that contribute to the environmental problems. Therefore, a technique to upgrade filtration in water treatment was studied because of water contamination contributed by Petroleum and chemical industry either in processing, production and utilities plant itself. In order to increase the water treatment performance, a natural quartz sand was improvised as the sand act as a filter bed in filtration. Sand sample from a local beach, Pantai Rusila is selected as it match the size criterion for sand water filtration. Enhancing the medium of sand by surface alteration helps water treatment execution. The adsorbent was grafted to the surface of the sand through the chemical reaction between functional group such as -COOH, -C=O, and -OH, on the surfaces of GO. These functional groups are essential for the high sorption of heavy metal ions. The sand will be coated with a two different adsorbent which is Graphene Oxide (GO) and chitosan. GO and chitosan were chosen to be coated with sand due to strong adsorption performance for organic matter and heavy metals ions compared to sand itself. The morphologies and rheology of the GO/chitosan coated sand were affirmed by utilizing Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), digital microscope, Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD).