The recent El Ni?o season has greatly affected the water source of

The recent El Ni?o season has greatly affected the water source of the vast majority of Luzon Island. Angat Dam has plummeted beyond critical water level. Last time this happened was about 10 years ago and water interruption deeply affected both the lives and the economy of the country. San Pablo City is the only city in the world to have seven lakes and all of these bodies of water are great for fisheries but what if it can be an alternative water source in conjunction with other streams and river systems within the city.

Activated charcoal is known for a lot of properties especially with its adsorption property. However, there is a scarcity of studies that supports all of its claimed properties but there are selected studies that support its potential which the researchers want to utilize. Corn is one of the prominent crops produce of the country. The inedible corn cob is often wasted. The corn cobs will be pulverized and subjected to 800OC heat to undergo the process of carbonization from which activated charcoal will be produced and will be utilized as water filtration device to produce potable drinking water.

It may also have greater yield compared to other possible alternatives. Thus, a matter of primary concern is the economical and efficient utilization of these corn cobs for a purpose. As they are porous, they can be used as water filtrates. The device can also be used to filter industrial waste water cleaning it before even reaching other bodies of water.

The main objective of this investigation is to filtrate waste water from the domestic and industrial sources of water by the use of under-utilized agricultural waste. The present study is based on the scientific principles of Adsorption by immobilizing the contaminants with the help of corn cobs.

The scientific field already have various ways on treating water. There is an ongoing dilemma of rising sea water level while our fresh water sources are depleting. Industrialization doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon and our global population growth seems to be increasing. Conventional filters, bioremediation, spectrometry, and osmosis to name a few; these are just some of the processes that science came up with to resolve our water problems. This study will utilize the adsorption properties of activated charcoal to filter contaminated water. Activated charcoal has many claimed properties some of which has been proven while some are still in question. This study hopes to widen the knowledge about activated charcoal and what are the possible sources of it. The knowledge that will be gathered can help the students to have a better understanding to the properties of the promising activated charcoal which is one of the new trends in materials engineering.

The research is primarily catered to the community of San Pablo City but especially to the households that is not connected to the water line or those who experiences timed specific water supply. The population of the city is constantly growing and with the drought season seemingly happening yearly, a filter would be very valuable and significant to the community. The city has seven lakes, a system of rivers, and other water sources all of which are not properly taken care of and is not the best source of drinking water. A cost-effective water filtration device will be a good help for a lot of people and to lessen our dependence to the water systems.

The study is a culmination of different studies and will serve as an application of those. However, it also hopes to provide better knowledge in terms of other implementations of a water filtration device. It will also provide a way to utilize and recycle the usually thrown away corn cob. The technology will hope to provide a filtration device and also a recycling method or waste management.

One of the top 10 leading causes of death in the Philippines was acute watery diarrhea during the year 2016. The recent water supply crisis in Metro Manila also accentuates the problem in water availability in the country as the capital is also affected (World Health Organization, 2019).

The latest El Ni?o season that hit the Philippines showed the country’s vulnerability when it comes to water supply regardless of the fact that it is surrounded by water. As shown by previous studies, extreme events worsened by climate change like droughts and floods have serious negative implications to the major water reservoirs of Philippines. Changes in temperature and rainfall in the future will have a profound effect on the inflow in the Angat reservoir and Lake Lanao, two of the major water sources for the country’s major cities. Water runoff is likely to decrease on both reservoirs and will be insufficient for the increasing demand on the next few years (Cruz & Jose, 1999).

Water Contamination

Due to the wide range of water pollution, different environmental concerns have arisen from various industrial waste management control group. However, most of the industrial population managed landfills which contributed to the sources of chemicals in the environment. Industrial water wastes have a larger contribution to water contamination. Coagulation and flocculation were used as a conventional method for the removal of dye percentage on water. Different processes require high extent rate of disposal which are frequently ineffective to treat metallic impurities. Technologies used in microbial degradation cost more than the attributed organic funds.

Activated Charcoal

People have long used activated charcoal as a natural water filter. Just as it does in the intestines and stomach, activated charcoal can interact with and absorb a range of toxins, drugs, viruses, bacteria, fungus, and chemicals found in water. In commercial settings, such as waste-management centers, operators often use activated carbon granules for one part of the filtration process. Dozens of water filtration products are also designed for at-home use, using carbon cartridges to purify water of toxins and impurities. With that said, corncob as one of the main wastes in agriculture can be a great raw material for making different activated carbons (Huizen, 2018).

Activated charcoal is a highly absorbent gritty black material commonly found in air and water filters. It is created by carbonizing organic matter in a kiln under anaerobic conditions and activating the material with oxidizing gases like steam or air at high temperatures. This oxidative process erodes the charcoals internal surfaces and increases its adsorption capacity by creating an internal network of very fine pores that results in a charcoal that is more porous than regular charcoal (Kaufman, 2013).

Activated carbon adsorption method has a great potential in removing impurities including dyes and heavy metals from waste water (Teng, Ho, Hsu, & Hsieh, 2003). Naturally occurring materials with high-carbon content with large quantity of availability have been investigated (Oliveira and Yabe, 1993). The unique adsorbent property, introducing the effectiveness in recovery processes, including large surface area, wide range of adsorption effect and abrasion number. The surface area that measures the adsorption capacity is usually divided in to three components (Burton and Tchobanoglous, 1991). Micropores which are channels and pores with diameters less than 2nm are generally containing the largest portion of the surface area of carbon. Mesopores has a range of 2 to 50 nm and macropores are defined with greater than 50 nm in diameter. The pore size distribution is important in determining the effectiveness of the adsorption capability of an activated charcoal.

Corn Supply

Corn is one of the major crops produced by the Philippines together with rice and coconut. It is estimated that about 4 million tons of grains are produced yearly which yields around 1 million corn cobs which main purpose for the farmers is only as a supplementary fuel for cooking. Corn is a good burner but under controlled temperature and process, it can turn into activated carbon (Zafar, 2019).

Most of the water system of the rural areas and municipalities of the country is not regulated nationally. Nagcarlan is one of those that has a poorly managed water distribution system as it is not overseen by the National Water Resources Board (NWRB) and only works internally. Many are reliant on natural water resources from the surroundings and this can be affected by multiple external factors. There may be uncontrolled application of pesticides and other chemicals that may leach into the water source. The houses and farms are not subjected to proper standards when it comes to septic tanks and waste disposal system which may contaminate the nearby sources (Abulencia, O’Brien, Gallardo, & Tanala, 2012).

Filtration is one of the stages in water treatment under controlled condition in water purification and an indispensable unit process (Culp and Culp, 1974). It is a process of which removes suspended matter through the use of filters. The removal of suspended solids by filtration plays an important role in both the naturally occurring purification of groundwater and artificial purification of surface water done in treatment plants. Since water continues to be an essential supporter of all forms of plant and animal life, there is the need for treatment when it gets polluted, especially with heavy metals that may bring bad effects on human health according to World Health Organization (Buah, Mac Carthy, & Ndur, 2016).

Activated Carbon (AC) has a large surface area proven to be effective in adsorption of chemicals and volatile organic compounds. Activated Carbon can be produced from multiple sources. One process that was formulated by the Industrial Technology Development Institute (ITDI) requires the chosen material to be subjected to as 12-hour activation process at up to 1273.15 K with a supply steam rate of 1.0 to 1.5 kg/hr (Abulencia et al., 2012).

It was said that activated carbons that were prepared from corncob can be used successfully as adsorbing agent. Since corncob, an agriculture solid waste, used in this study is locally available; the adsorption process is expected to be economically for wastewater treatment (El-Sayed, Yehia, & Asaad, 2014). Laboratory analysis carried out on the materials used showed that activated corn cob has effective size. In the case of alkalinity, the activated corn cob showed a gradual removal in the concentration than the other possible samples or materials used. It was more efficient in turbidity, ammonia nitrogen and other physical properties removal (Adie, Lukman, Saulawa, & Yahaya, 2013).

In a wide range of high-carbon content materials, mostly used industrial activated charcoals came from abundant naturally occurring rich in carbon materials such as coal, petroleum and wood. With its high porosity, activated charcoals are used in industries and in recovering chemical wastes. The ideal adsorbent mechanism is specified with its distinctive properties including high-degree surface reactivity and favorable pore size.

The availability and cheapness of the coal, brought in to industrial purification, acts as the commonly used alternative for the production of activated carbons (Ahmadpour and Do, 1996). Activated carbon has a characteristics of large surface area, it has a range of 500 to 1,400 m? per gram and can maximized as high as 2,500 m?/g. With this property, it exhibited another potential adsorption criterion which contributed a great potential for removal of dyes, and heavy metals from waste water. According to Engineer Allan Lizardo, activated charcoal from corn cob produced 94.77% removal of Hg solute, 89.25% removal of Methyl violet, 75.25% removal of Rhodamine-B, 72.285% removal of Methylene blue and 51.71% removal. These findings effectively showed that activated carbon from industrial waste product can treat dye removal.