Application of guar gum as a flocculant aid in food processing and potable water treatment

Abstract

Guar gum is a widely used ingredient in food processing industry. This work highlights the use of guar gum as a flocculant aid in potable water treatment. Current practice of using synthetic flocculants such as polyacryl-amide has raised controversies of acrylamide residues in water and thereby increasing health risk of the population. The flocculating effect of guar gum on the settling characteristics of flocs in a bench-scale potable water clarification process is presented in this work. Data from two experimental runs, namely, run A (guar gum and primary coagulant) and run B (primary coagulant only), were used to plot settling velocity distribution curves (SVDC). Observation of these curves revealed that guar gum increased the proportion of destabilised colloidal impurities settling above a stated minimum velocity. It was found that guar gum may be used along with alum to reduce raw water turbidity from 26.5 to 1.0. It may be concluded that guar gum can be used as a safer alternative to polyacrylamide in water treatment for drinking or food processing purposes.