Performances of Polyethylene Terephthalate Plastic Bottles Waste as Supporting Media in Domestic Wastewater Treatment Using Aerobic Fixed-Film System

There has been a lot of research on domestic wastewater treatment utilizing polymer-based supporting media. The purpose of this study is to investigate the removal of organic compounds and nutrients, as well as the kinetics of substrate removal, in a batch aerobic fixed-film system that is fed by artificial domestic wastewater and uses Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles waste as supporting media. The artificial domestics wastewater feeding contains C6H12O6, NH4Cl, and KH2PO4 as carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus sources. Artificial domestics wastewater treatment was performed at COD levels of 200, 300, 400, 500, and 600 (mg/L). The findings demonstrated that an aerobic fixed-film system wastewater treatment with PET-supporting media could remove organics and nutrients. The removal for COD 85.76 +/- 0.59%, ammonia 76.59 +/- 0.83%, nitrite 76.09 +/- 0.66%, nitrate 64.30 +/- 0.42%, TN 77.02 +/- 0.94%, and TP 86.54 +/- 0.68%, with the Singh's method substrate removal kinetics (k(1)) is 1.60 +/- 0.05/hour. The benefit of supporting media from PET plastic bottle waste is contributing to plastic bottle waste reduction in Indonesia.