Pre-aggregation of Al13 in optimizing coagulation for removal of humic acid

Abstract

The effective removal of humic acid (HA) by coagulation has been extensively investigated for water treatments. However, the limitations of pH variation and excessive residual aluminum issues were still factors needed to be considered. In this study, to investigate the coagulation mechanism for removing HA by Al13 and optimize Al13 operation for removing HA, Al13 and preformed Al13 aggregates (Al13agg) were applied to remove HA at different pH conditions. The results showed that preformed Al13agg exhibited superior HA removal performance than Al13 due to its wide pH range and low residual Al level. During coagulation, Al13 and Al13agg interacted with HA in their original status, but the DSlope325-375 difference implied that the complexation capacity between HA and Al13agg was stronger than Al13. The new peaks of HPSEC representing larger molecular weight substances were formed under acidic and neutral conditions, which indicated that HA firstly aggregated into larger complexed molecules by interacting with Al13 or its hydrolysates and was subsequently removed by forming large flocs which was completely different from Al13agg situation. Therefore, the different coagulation mechanisms played the roles in HA removal for Al13 and Al13agg which were studied in this paper. It was believed that the complexation and charge neutralization effects dominated coagulation process for Al13 while sweep flocculation and adsorption coagulation were main driving force for Al13agg in HA removing. This work provides significant understanding of HA removal by Al13 and Al13agg coagulation, which can help to design and optimize the high efficiency coagulant based on Al polycations.