The Potential Use of Moringa peregrina Seeds and Seed Extract as a Bio-Coagulant for Water Purification

Abstract

Moringa is a genus with many applications; some of these applications can be linked to their use in traditional medicine and as a source of nutrients, and traditionally, some species have been used for water purification. Many studies have been conducted to assess the use of different species of Moringa for water purification. One of the species that is extensively studied is M. Oleifera because of its wide geographical distribution. There are limited studies on M. peregrina due to its limited geographical distribution, as it is native to the Arabian Peninsula and some other countries in the Middle East. The aim of this study is to assess the potential use of M. peregrina for water coagulation. This study was conducted using synthetic water samples as well as real, untreated wastewater samples to determine the potential of M. peregrina seeds for water coagulation. The results revealed that M. peregrina seed extract had better turbidity removal at 60 °C compared with the use of the seed extract at room temperature, and increasing the ionic strength of the extracting solution could also improve the efficiency of the seed extract in terms of turbidity removal. Furthermore, the de-oiled seed extract showed efficiency comparable with that of the raw seeds. Application to the real wastewater samples showed that the de-oiled seed extract showed percentage removal of 38%, 81%, and 74% for SCOD, turbidity, and color, respectively. Furthermore, the de-oiled M. peregrina seed extract at a dose of 200 mg/L equivalent to raw seeds was capable of removing 97.4%, 66.5%, 51.8%, 50.3%, and 45.8% of Mo, Cu, Cd, Cr, and Co, respectively.