THIN SOEDARTI, TINI SURTININGSIH AND NUR INDRADEWI OKTAVITRI
Abstract
Few biomaterials have shown promise as adsorber to remove heavy metals from polluted waters at a lower cost than conventional wastewater treatment technologies. Skeletonema costatum is one of the abundant microalgae in the Java Sea. This study aimed to know removal efficiency of the heavy metals (Hg(II), Cd(II), and Pb(II)) in the mixture using Skeletonema costatum with a variation of contact time. This study used factorial design 3 x 5, i.e. three of S. costatum inoculation concentration (5 106 cells/mL, 107 cells/mL, and 1.5 107 cells/mL), and five of contact times (24, 48, 72, 96 and 120 hours). The treatments have replicated five times. The filtrate of media was analyzed by Atomic Absorbation spectroscopy (AAS). The concentration of each heavy metal was 2 ppm in solution. The data analysis of removal efficiency used multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The result indicated the highest of removal efficiency was 1.5 107 cells/mL inoculation on 120 hours contact time (Hg(II) = 97.66%, Cd(II) = 87.2%, and Pb(II) = 90.6%).