The Efficiency of Walnut Shells Filter in the Removal of Cooking Oil Residues from Domestic Kitchen Wastewater

Abstract:

Wastewater of domestic kitchen (KWW) may contain significant quantity of cooking oil residues and form problem of blocking domestic sewage pipe as cooking oil accumulated and clump inside the sewage pipe requiring cleaning and process for the removal of clumped oil residues. This study was designed to examine the efficiency of synthetic filter consisting of walnut shells in the removal of cooking oil residues from kitchen wastewater in addition to improve other wastewater variables such as pH, electric conductivity and total dissolved solids. where all collected kitchen wastewater samples were examined during November 2024 in Technical College of Al-Musaib lap. The synthetic filter was prepared by using a polyethylene plastic tube with 30 cm length and 10 cm diameter giving a volume of 2336.5 cm3. This tube had two ends where the upper end for receiving kitchen wastewater while the lower end for the draining. About 150 g of walnut shells with various sizes were placed in the synthetic filter where the upper end was linked to the pipe of kitchen sink while the lower end was connected to draining plastic container in order to examine the wastewater containing cooking oil residues. This study was proceeded at lab scale and the examination was carried out firstly via filtering wastewater using only Whatman filter paper to act as control and secondly via synthetic filter containing walnut shells which was repeated three times. A total of 2000 cm3 domestic kitchen wastewater was obtained and divided into 4 subsamples of 250 cm3 each where the sample was used for control test while the remaining 3 subsamples used for walnut shells filter. The obtained results have shown that mean pH value of control sample was 9.1 ± 0.2 while it was almost similar for the walnut shells filter samples and varied from 7.5 ± 0.2 to 7.6 ± 0.1. For wastewater electric conductivity electric conductivity ( EC), it was found that control sample had higher mean value of 3192.5 ± 317.7 µs/cm and the walnut shell filter samples have had lower mean values varying from 2425.3 ± 295.0 µs/cm to 2754.4 ± 44.55 µs/cm. Regarding wastewater total dissolved solid (TDS) content, it was recorded that control sample had much higher mean value (3072.67 ± 47.5 ppm) than those of walnut shells samples which ranged from minimum value of 1381.0 ±13.0 to maximum value of 1414.0 ± 74.0 ppm. In case of cooking oil residues, the study has recorded significantly higher mean value of 7.3 ± 0.8 gm in control wastewater sample while walnut sells filtered samples had much lower mean values varying from 2.94 ± 0.08 to 3.3 ±0.2 gm. It seems very clearly that walnut shell filter has removed significant quantity (Probability ≤ 0.05) of cooking oil residues from the kitchen wastewater.

• Periodical: Key Engineering Materials (Volume 1052)
• Pages: 113-120
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/p-m0Q7ek
• Online since: May 2026
• Authors: Zena Hussein Ali, Atheer Z. Al-Qaisi*, Mustafa A. Al Yousif, Diaa Hakim Musa
• Keywords: Cooking Oil Residues, Kitchen Wastewater, Synthetic Filter, Walnut Shell, Wastewater Variables

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