Potassium recovery from banana peels by hydrothermal treatment

摘要

Banana peels is a material that can be used as a potassium source for organic fertilizer. Potassium fertilizer has a role in improving plants productivity. This research aims to determine the effect of hydrothermal temperature on the potassium concentration in hydrothermal liquid product and to find out the potential of zeolite in adsorbing potassium from the solution. Thus, there were two stage of experiment of potassium recovery here i.e. potassium extraction process from banana peel waste by a hydrothermal treatment in various temperature (150, 175 and 200°C) for 1 hour and the adsorption process of potassium in the liquid product by adding zeolite for 24 hours. The result shows that higher treatment temperature of will produce higher concentration of potassium in the solution while the highest potassium uptake is using 40 g of natural zeolite in 50 ml hydrothermal liquid product with the recovery is about 94%.