Abstract

Various substances have been discharged into water areas from the shore and rivers through human activity. Suspended solids (SS) are examples of such substances. SS have the potential to adsorb various substances such as heavy metals and nutrients. In addition, SS which exist in the water as contaminated SS, form contaminated sediments by sedimentation. These contaminated sediments will influence human health through the food chain. Eutrophication is also one of the biggest environmental problems caused by organic matter and nutrients residing in enclosed water areas. Therefore, removal of the substances such as SS, and decreasing the amount of chemical oxygen demand (COD) present in the water and organic matter play an important role in environmental treatment. In this study, laboratory filtration tests were performed to develop a technique for water treatment. A non-woven filter was used as the filter medium. The pore size and the thickness of the filter are 150 om and 0.2 cm, respectively. The results showed that SS were removed to levels of 2 mg/L or less by filtration. A SS removal efficiency of 84.3% was obtained. By filtration, COD was also removed. The results revealed that there is a linear relationship with the regression coefficient (R 2 ) of 0.6 to 0.9 between the elimination of SS and COD. In addition, dissolved COD results also showed a decreasing trend through the filtration process. Therefore, SS removal improved the quality of water in terms of COD.