Effectiveness of Using Natural Materials as a Coagulant for Reduction of Water Turbidity in Water Treatment

Coagulation-Flocculation plays a significant role in drinking water treatment. Laboratory experiments were carried out in order to assess the effectiveness of using Conocarpus Leaves Solution (CLS) as a natural coagulant in conjunction with the synthetic chemical represented by Alum in the water purification. Biological test was carried out to confirm that these leaves are not toxic, followed by optimizing the dosage of alum and then Alum and CLS were applied to the turbid water whose turbidity level has two ranges, (20 - 35) NTU and (90 - 120) NTU, using the JAR Test. The parameters determined before and after coagulation were turbidity, pH and temperature. The experiments showed that the optimum dose of alum coagulant (individually) for high turbid water is about 18 mg/l with PH = 7 and 24 mg/l f with PH = 5 and 9. In addition, for the low turbidity water, the optimum dose of alum was lower than in the high turbid water. In terms of using Alum in conjunction with CLS, at high range of turbidity, the results show that at 33% ratio of leaves solution to alum coagulant, there are 50% and 75% turbidity reduction performed for the PH equal to 5 and 9 respectively. Although about 62% and 65% turbidity reduction were achieved at PH = 7 and PH = 9 in the low range level. However, low reduction in turbidity has occurred when the water PH = 5. The amount of leaves solution added to the water in the water treatment plant is highly important, hence it decreases the amount of using the synthetic chemicals by about 33% of the quantity that required for water treatment and that will help both, the water industry and the human health. More studies need to be achieved in particular different concentration of the Conocarpus leaves solution in order to improve the percentage of using the natural material as a coagulant.