Plant Seeds as Biosorbents for the Purification of Water

Abstract

Water purification is essential to overcome drinking water problem. This study was carried out to find out suitable low cost biosorbents for the purification of physiochemical parameters of water. Moringa (Moringa oleifera), Nelli (Phyllanthus acidus), jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus), java plum (Syzygium cumini) and mangrove apple (Sonneratia caseolaris) seeds were used and their efficiency was compared with activated charcoal as a reference. Water samples were collected from a selected drinking well at Vantharumoolai, Chenkalady. 100 mg/L dosage of dried seeds powder was taken, and they were mixed with the collected water samples and were left for 2 hours. The treated water samples with seeds and activated charcoal were examined for different physiochemical parameters such as fluoride, conductivity, pH, hardness, chloride, Total dissolved solids (TDS), cadmium, calcium, iron, magnesium, colour and odour. Among the tested seeds, Moringa seed showed the highest ability to reduce pH (8.31 to 7.30), chloride (62.73%), hardness (23.07%), calcium (38.27%), magnesium (10.63%), cadmium (80%) & Iron (75.10%) whereas activated charcoal reduced those parameters (8.31 to 8.08), 56.92%, 30.76%, 49.25%, 15.61%, 82%, and 82.09% respectively. Mangrove apple seed has reduced the conductivity (21.67 %) and TDS (23.28 %) significantly whereas activated charcoal reduced it by 21.29% and 22.28% respectively. Nelli seed has reduced the fluoride in the contaminated water significantly (24.45%) whereas activated charcoal reduced it by 7.26% and all seeds have shown the ability to remove the colour of water samples. Moringa seeds were found to be the best seeds to purify contaminated water in this study. The use of moringa seeds as natural adsorbent could be proposed for environmentally friendly, simplified water purification for rural communities in cost effective manner.