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Agriculture and Agricultural Science Procedia 3 (2015) 216 – 220

The 2014 International Conference on Agro-industry (ICoA): Competitive and sustainable Agro-
industry for Human Welfare

Wastewater Treatment in Cajuput Oil Industry using Anaerobic

Filtration
Rafik Kurniawana, Novita Erma Kristantia, Anggoro Cahyo Sukartikoa*
a
Department of Agro-industrial Technology Universitas Gadjah Mada, Jl Flora 1 Bulaksumur, Yogyakarta 55281, Indonesia

Abstract

Wastewater that contains high organic material is being produced during cajuput oil production. Appropriate treatments, therefore,
are required in order to meet the effluent disposal standard. Coagulation and neutralization as pre-treatments prior to anaerobic
filtration were applied to such wastewater sample. The result showed that both pre-treatments were able to reduce the total
suspended solid by 73% and increase the pH by 6. The anaerobic filtration prototype, with 3-stage filtration process, was able to
reduce the levels of BOD, COD and TSS of the wastewater by 39.34 + 1.61 mg/l; 67.73 + 0.00 mg/l; and 7.20 + 0.23 mg/l,
respectively.

©© 2015
2015 The
The Authors. Published by
Authors. Published byElsevier
ElsevierB.V.
B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of Jurusan Teknologi Industri Pertanian, Fakultas Teknologi Pertanian, Universitas Gadjah
Peer-review
Mada. under responsibility of Jurusan Teknologi Industri Pertanian, Fakultas Teknologi Pertanian,
Universitas Gadjah Mada
Keywords: cajuput oil; wastewater; coagulation; neutralization; anaerobic filtration

1. Introduction

A large amount of wastewater, which contains a relatively high organic material, is being produced during the
eucalyptus distillation process. The disposal of this wastewater without proper treatment, therefore, may contaminate
the environment. Preliminary tests to measure the level of contamination such as Chemical and Biological Oxygen
Demand (COD and BOD), Total Suspended Solid (TSS), and pH, indicated that the untreated wastewater still has a

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +62-274-551219; fax: +62-274-551219

E-mail address: cahyos@ugm.ac.id

2210-7843 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of Jurusan Teknologi Industri Pertanian, Fakultas Teknologi Pertanian, Universitas Gadjah Mada
doi:10.1016/j.aaspro.2015.01.042
 Rafik Kurniawan et al. / Agriculture and Agricultural Science Procedia 3 (2015) 216 – 220 217

contamination level higher than effluent disposal standard. Appropriate treatments, therefore, are required to decrease
the organic material level contained in the wastewater in order to meet the required effluent level.
One of the problems faced by small and medium-scale agro-industries in developing countries, including cajuput
oil industry, is their lack of knowledge of proper wastewater treatments. In addition, to be widely adopted by the
industries, a simple operated technology with low operational cost is necessary to be developed.
Anaerobic filtration, a method that use microbial decomposers lived in its filter media, can be used to treat
wastewater with high organic compound. The filtration process, which uses no oxygen and requires low nutrients
(Kushwaha et al., 2011; Lei Sun et al., 2012), allows it to be operated with lower cost and simpler process (Suriwiria,
2013) due to its relatively low construction when compared with aerobic filtration. The process, therefore, is more
likely to be applied in small and medium scale agro-industries.
To be carried out effectively, the method requires influent with low level of suspended solid, which simplifies the
filtration process, and relatively neutral pH value, which supports the optimum condition for microbial growth.
Therefore, pre-treatments, such as coagulation and neutralization, are required to decrease the level of suspended solid
and neutralize the influent pH value.
The research aimed to apply pre-treatments and anaerobic filtration to reduce organic pollutant content on
wastewater produced in the production of cajuput oil.

2. Experiment

2.1. Sample

Untreated wastewater produced during the whole production stages of cajuput oil is taken as samples of this study.
Sampling was conducted in May to June 2014. The samples, both untreated and treated, were tested and the results
were compared to the effluent disposal standard.

2.2. Pre-treatments

Coagulation was done to decrease suspended solid in the wastewater sample. Alum (Al2 (SO4)3), which is easily
obtained and has a reasonable price for cajuput oil industry, was used as coagulant. Various dosages of alum, ranged
from 0.5 to 5 g were dissolved into 100 ml wastewater samples, stirred for 2 minutes and kept for 2 hours. The
suspended solid were measured in order to find out the optimum dosage of the coagulant.
Neutralization was done to obtain wastewater sample with pH 6.0 to 8.0, an optimum pH for application of
anaerobic filtration treatment. Various dosages of calcium carbonate (CaCO3), ranged from 1 to 6 g, were dissolved
into 100 ml of wastewater samples, stirred for 2 minutes and kept for 2 hours. The pH of the treated samples was
measured in order to find out the optimum dosage of the calcium carbonate required in the neutralization.

2.3. Measurement of wastewater’s quality indicators

Quality of the wastewater is indicated with value of Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand
(COD), pH and Total Suspended Solid (TSS). Measurement of BOD, COD, pH, and TSS were done based on
IKM/S.4.S/BLK-Y, APHA 5220-C 2005, SNI 06-6989, 11-2004 and APHA 2540-D 2005 standards, respectively.

2.4. Anaerobic filtration

In this study, two anaerobic filtration experiments were conducted. Three stages filtration tanks, which may increase
the reduction process efficiency of BOD and COD of the wastewater sample, were used in both experiments. In the
first experiments, each tank used 24 hours retention time before being flowed into the next tanks, whereas in the second
experiments, the retention time was extended to 72 hours. BOD, COD, and TSS were measured in order to find the
effect of the filtration in both experiments.
218 Rafik Kurniawan et al. / Agriculture and Agricultural Science Procedia 3 (2015) 216 – 220

3. Results and discussion

Various dosages of alum had been added on wastewater samples to find out the optimum dosage required to produce treated wastewater with a
relatively clear appearance and high volume of sediment formed. Addition of 3 g alum on 100 ml wastewater produced treated wastewater with
clear appearance, highest volume of sediment, and formed flocs (Fig. 1a). The effect of coagulation on the TSS and pH of wastewater samples
were measured, as shown in

Fig. 2. The results show that the TSS value of the coagulated sample has met the effluent disposal standard and the
suspended solid could be decreased up to 73%. However, we found that the pH value of the samples was also
decreased, which created unfavorable condition for microbe and could reduce their ability to decompose organic matter
in the sample in the next process.
In order to neutralize the wastewater sample, various dosages of CaCO3 then were added into the samples and their
pH was measured. Fig. 1b shows pH values of the samples added by various dosages of CaCO3. Along with the
increasing of CaCO3 dosage the pH value of the wastewater samples increased. The addition of more than 5 g CaCO3
resulted in insignificant increase of pH value. Furthermore, addition of higher CaCO3 dosage to the samples may also
raise suspended solid in the samples. Due to these reasons, dosage of 5 g CaCo3 was used in this study.

a a 10 b 6,7
Volume of sediment

6,6
8 6,5

pH value
6,4
6 6,3
(ml)

4 6,2
6,1
2 6
5,9
0 5,8
0 2 4 6 0 2 4 6 8
Coagulant dosage (g/ 100 ml) CaCO3 dosage (g/ 100 ml)

Fig. 1. (a) Effect of alum dose on formation of sediment and flocs in wastewater; (b) effect of CaCO3 on pH value of wastewater samples

In addition to the pH value measurement, other wastewater quality indicators, such as BOD, COD, and TSS were also measured in order to find
out the effect of neutralization on wastewater sample, and the results were shown in

Fig. 2. Although neutralization resulted in lower BOD and COD values, they still exceeded the effluent disposal
standard, indicating that the coagulation and neutralization were not enough as treatment for the wastewater.
Meanwhile, the addition of CaCO3 had also increased the TSS value, which exceeded the effluent disposal standard.
However, anaerobic filtration is expected to lower the level to meet the standard level.
Both anaerobic filtration experiments had been successful in reducing the value of TSS, BOD and COD of the
wastewater samples. However, the BOD and COD values resulted in the first experiment had not met the required
disposal standard (Table 1).

Table 1 Quality indicators of wastewater samples with 24 hours retention time on each tank

Effluent (mg/l)
Indicator Influent (mg/l)
1st stage filtration 2nd stage filtration 3rd stage filtration
TSS 100.00 + 0.00 51.00 + 0.00 32.50 + 0.00 15.20 + 0.49
BOD 2966.47 + 119.85 395.38 + 15.28 274.34 + 6.45 52.35 + 4.59
COD 3888.00 + 252.72 499.26 + 0.00 475.16 + 0.00 186.08 + 0.00

Short retention time might not sufficient enough for the microorganism to decompose organic matter in the samples.
According to Jenie and Rahayu (1990), besides temperature, acidity and sufficient nutrition, anaerobic bacteria
 Rafik Kurniawan et al. / Agriculture and Agricultural Science Procedia 3 (2015) 216 – 220 219

required 2 to 8 days to decompose organic matter in the agricultural wastewater with BOD value higher than 1000
mg/l. The use of longer retention time in the second experiments had effectively decreased the TSS, BOD and COD
value below the effluent disposal standard (Error! Not a valid bookmark self-reference.). Furthermore, Badiei et al.
(2011) reported that higher efficiency of COD reduction of a high strength wastewater with high solid content was
achieved at optimum retention time (72 hours) in the experiment of various hydraulic retention times ranging from 36
to 96 h at constant cycle length and various organic loading rate concentration. The same author mentioned that organic
matter removal efficiency was affected by hydraulic retention times.

Table 2 Quality indicators of wastewater samples with 72 hours retention time on each tank

Effluent (mg/l)
Indicator Influent (mg/l)
1st stage filtration 2nd stage filtration 3rd stage filtration
TSS 100.00 + 0.00 23.00 + 0.00 10.00 + 0.00 7.20 + 0.00
BOD 2966.47 + 119.85 391.64 + 15.23 90.79 + 2.13 39.34 + 1.61
COD 3888.00 + 252.72 550.91 + 15.23 103.30 + 0.00 67.73 + 0.00

Wastewater of cajuput oil production BOD = 2966.47 mg/l

COD = 3888 mg/l
TSS = 100 mg/l
Coagulation pH = 4.0
TSS = 27 mg/l
pH = 3.5
Neutralization BOD = 911.40 mg/l
COD = 1226.88 mg/l
TSS = 70 mg/l
1st stage anaerobic filtration pH = 6.0
BOD = 391.64 mg/l
COD = 550.91 mg/l
TSS = 23 mg/l
2nd stage anaerobic filtration
BOD = 90.79 mg/l
COD = 103.30 mg/l
TSS = 10 mg/l
3rd stage anaerobic filtration
BOD = 39.34 mg/l
COD = 67.73 mg/l Standard:
TSS = 7.2 mg/l BOD = 50 mg/l
Disposal
COD = 125 mg/l
TSS = 50 mg/l
pH = 6.0 – 8.0

Fig. 2. Quality indicators at each stages of wastewater sample treatment

According to Sugiharto (1987), bacteria are the most responsible microorganism in decomposition of organic matter
in wastewater. Sufficient bacteria, therefore, are required. At the beginning of the cycle, bacteria will experience lag
phase, an adaptability period in which the growth is slow. Later on, they will experience acceleration and logarithmic
phases. During the logarithmic phase, nutrients contained in the wastewater are proportionally equal to the number of
bacteria. With increasing number of bacteria and the decreasing of nutrients contained in the medium, the bacteria
population decline, which is called declining growth phase.
220 Rafik Kurniawan et al. / Agriculture and Agricultural Science Procedia 3 (2015) 216 – 220

4. Conclusion

The result showed that coagulation and neutralization were able to reduce the total suspended solid by 73% and
increase the pH by 6. The prototype with 3-stage filtration process was able to reduce the levels of BOD, COD and
TSS of the wastewater by 39.34 + 1.61 mg/l; 67.73 + 0.00 mg/l; and 7.20 + 0.23 mg/l, respectively. The prototypes,
therefore, has been effectively decrease the levels of the three selected wastewater parameters below the required
levels of cajuput oil.

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