MORINGA OLEIFERA AS COAGULANT USED IN WATER PURIFICATION PROCESS FOR CONSUMPTION

Abstract

Water for consumption purpose needs to be treated to meet the quality guidelines of 5 Nephelometric Turbidity Unit (NTU) according to World Health Organization. The main objective of this study is to compare Moringa Oleifera Lam. to that of aluminum sulphate in terms of treatment efficiency. The method is carried out using Jar Tests and raw data are analyzed using Microsoft Excel Office Professional Plus 2013 and Pearson Correlation. Results shown proved the ability of Morina oleifera to remove the total suspended solids in the water from 35.9 ± 1.65 NTU to 3.17 ± 0.3 NTU at optimum dosage of 15 mg/l while aluminum sulphate to 7.26 ± 2.13 NTU at dosage of 55 mg/l. The treatment efficiency of Moringa oleifera is also higher at 91.17% and aluminum sulphate is at 78.72%. Moringa oleifera resist changes in pH as final reading of the water sample increases from 5.67 ± 0.23 to 6.05 ± 0.03 while aluminum sulphate decreases to 3.43 ± 0.05 which indicates elevated acidity level. Conductivity reading of Moringa oleifera is constant at range of 113.33 ± 5.77 ևS while aluminum sulphate increased drastically from initial reading of 86.67 ± 5.77 ևS to 1120 ± 10.0 ևS. The final temperature is still at normal room temperature range after the addition of both coagulants at 22.07 °C to 24.97 °C. As a conclusion, a cheaper and safer coagulant such as Moringa oleifera as compared to aluminum sulphate can be established.

Keywords

• Moringa oleifera
• Aluminum sulphate
• Coagulation process
• Turbidity
• pH
• Conductivity