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Synthesis of Plant-Based Coagulant for Turbidity Removal in Water Treatment.

The green chemistry concept fulfils
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Reg. ID : 17550
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Description

Coagulation and flocculation play the most important part of water treatment, these processes involve the removal of unwanted contaminants and materials by adding in a chemical coagulant, which will chemically be reacting to the unwanted particles, causing them to agglomerate and settle to the bottom of a settling tank, making it easier to be extracted. The most commonly used coagulant in modern water treatment is aluminium sulfate, also known as alum. The use of chemical coagulants has led to several negative effects. These negative effects can be divided into two parts, negative effects to human health, and to the environment. Firstly, aluminium sulfate residue is carcinogenic, with the ability to affect human health through intellectual and cognitive deterioration. It can also increase the risk of suffering from Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases. The green chemistry concept fulfils the need for a safer, alternative to replace chemical coagulant which is known as plant-based natural coagulants. Natural coagulants, mainly those being derived from plant sources have shown promising results, and can offer a lot of benefits. These benefits include non-toxic, non-hazardous and potentially to increased effectiveness if applied with a small amount of alum, and they are an inexpensive additive for increasing settling velocity, and reducing the coagulant dosage required.

Highlights

The green chemistry concept fulfils the need for a safer, alternative to replace chemical coagulant which is known as plant-based natural coagulants. Natural coagulants, mainly those being derived from plant sources have shown promising results, and can offer a lot of benefits. These benefits include non-toxic, non-hazardous and potentially to increased effectiveness if applied with a small amount of alum, and they are an inexpensive additive for increasing settling velocity, and reducing the coagulant dosage required. However, among a lot of the plant materials experimented to become coagulants, almost no studies exist regarding the use of Longan fruit seeds as a plant-based coagulant for turbidity removal. Thus, this study would like to identify Longan's potential as a coagulant, and also test out a simple method of coagulant synthesis, which is inexpensive, requires minimal equipment, and could be applied in the rural community. This study successfully synthesized a plant-based coagulant from Longan fruit seeds. In terms of application, the coagulant was tested to remove turbidity from water. Overall, the coagulant displayed relatively good coagulation activity. In this study, the operational parameters observed included the type of coagulant solvent, coagulant dosage, initial water turbidity level, initial water pH, rapid mixing time, slow mixing time and settling time. In general, under neutral conditions, the coagulant displayed removal efficiencies between 23.6 % and 31.9%, and the highest turbidity removal efficiency obtained in this study was 46.7%, which occurred once all operational parameters were modified. This study also able to provide more in-depth information regarding the behavioural patterns and characteristics of a plant-based coagulant synthesized from Longan fruits seeds, and it could be suggested that Longan fruit seeds can be applied as an environmentally friendly coagulant aid to conventional chemical coagulants. Water demand is high in Malaysia, thus, there is a need to ensure the water being supplied is clean and safe to drink. In order to accomplish this, water treatment needs to be conducted, and coagulation is an important step in that treatment. However, the use of conventional chemical coagulants like alum has posed several concerns in recent years. Natural, safe, plant-based type of coagulant has gained attention as it is seen as a cheaper, more sustainable source of coagulants.In Malaysia, there is a high demand and production of tropical fruits for local consumption, or to be exported. Thus, a large production of fruits ultimately leads to a large generation of fruit waste, mainly consisting of peels and seeds. Thus, this research on Longan's seed was identify as a good potential as plant-based natural coagulant. The application of Longan seed plant-based natural coagulant possesses high potential which is inexpensive, requires minimal equipment, and could be applied in the rural community.

Contact Person/Inventor

Name Email Contact Phone
Nur Khairunissa Abdol Alim nurkhairunnisa.alim@qiu.edu.my 60136673302

Award

Award Title Award Achievement Award Year Received
Malaysian Technology Expo MTE 2023 2023

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Additional Document

Attachment Size
file-1711708697.pdf (1.34 MB) 1.34 MB

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