Discovering potential of different parts of Moringa oleifera’s plants as clarifying agent in coffee effluent treatment

Abstract

Selection of coagulant for coagulation-flocculation treatment process involves more factors than we generally expect. Embracing emerging global concerns on green technologies and sustainability, researchers have been focusing on natural coagulant as an alternative to minimize environmental impact due to toxic chemical coagulants. Moringa oleifera has long been discovered as a highly potential agent in water clarification treatment, but most of the research done focuses only on the seeds of the plant. In this research, various parts of this plant species were studied namely soft stems, leaves, seeds and pods. These coagulants were prepared through drying and grinding methods, without any chemical activation or extraction to avoid unnecessary chemical burden on produced sludges or treated water after treatment. In treating coffee effluents, all these four coagulants from different parts (soft stems, leaves, seeds and pods) were able to remove good amount of turbidity compared to the control without coagulant. The performance of all four types of prepared coagulants were analyzed using jar test within similar dosage range to identify which part of M. oleifera that can serve the best coagulant. The highest removal of turbidity was achieved by the pods with 60-62% removal at a dosage as low as 0.03 and 0.04 g/L with 24-hour sedimentation. A similar range of turbidity removal was achieved by leaves coagulant at 0.06 g/L with similar operational conditions. These findings give evidence that different parts of M. oleifera plants possess good water clarifying ability, even better than the seeds that had been discovered beforehand.