The effectiveness of bamboo activated carbon in wastewater treatment using control charts

Bamboo has high carbon content, and the plant is easily accessible in Malaysia. Adsorption with active carbon (AC) is widely used as absorbent material in wastewater treatment application for removal of contaminants. This research aimed to turn the bamboo to good use by developing it into a sustainable activated carbon bio-adsorbent called bamboo activated carbon (BAC) for wastewater treatment. This research also incorporated the quality control charts, namely the Shewhart individual and Moving Average (MA) charts, into the wastewater treatment with BAC to signal the off-target process, thus instigating a more potent wastewater treatment approach. Three bamboo species, i.e., Bambusa vulgaris, Schizostachyum brachycladum, and Gigantochloa albociliata were harvested from Jeli, Kelantan and processed into the BAC using pyrolysis and carbonization. All BACs displayed satisfactory yields exceeding 81% and showcased favorable adsorption rates through the iodine test, with Schizostachyum brachycladum eliciting the most promising adsorption quality at 600°C. Consequently, this BAC was prioritized for chemical composition characterization using X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), and Brunnauer-Emmet-Teller (BET) analysis, as well as for assessing its adsorption effectiveness for heavy metal solutions. The FTIR findings detected the tertiary alcohol, alkyne functional group, and aliphatic and primary amine in the BAC samples. The BAC was dominated by the Carbon (C) element based on the elemental analysis. The BET results showed that the BAC size and surface area were negatively associated, contradicting the identified positive association between temperature versus iodine adsorption rate. The Atomic Adsorption Spectrophotometer (AAS) results unveiled that the Schizostachyum brachycladum BAC was effective in absorbing heavy metals, with a competent adsorption percentage. For practical application, the fish pond wastewater samples secured from a Jeli's fish pond were tested with the BAC to identify the adsorption efficacy of the BAC. The research results insinuate that the BAC is a positive wastewater precursor since the water quality index (WQI, on average, increased from approximately 59 (before-treatment) to 73 (after-treatment), surpassing the WI's water pollution benchmark (≤ 60) set by the Department of Environment (DOE). The research investigations affirmed that both Shewhart individual and MA charts helped detect out-of-control situations for the study. However, the Shewhart individual chart outperformed the MA chart in terms of out-of-control process detection speed