Performance of Alum Coagulation and Adsorption on Removing Organic Matter and E. coli

Abstract

Surface water is the primary resource for raw water in drinking water treatment processes. Therefore, the presence of microorganisms, bacteria, and viruses should be the main focus in drinking water treatment, in addition to natural organic matter, which is composed of organic carbon groups derived from aquatic biota as well as organic material, organic matter from industrial and domestic waste. This study applied coagulation-flocculation followed by adsorption as the advanced treatment with activated carbon for removing organic matter and bacteria simultaneously to know each process’s performance. The results indicated that all treatment processes have a good performance for removing dissolved organic matter in water with efficient removal of 28.35%-70.75% of TOC concentration and 26.75%-55.95% of UV254 concentration. Further, the selected processes demonstrated a high percentage of removal of E. coli, about 65.35%-96.43%. However, the effect of chlorination impacted the increasing THMs concentration up to 36.32%, while the other processes could remove THMs concentration 17.25%-51.08%. Overall, this study conjectures that all treatment processes simultaneously perform well for removing dissolved organic matter, THMs, and E. coli. However, chlorination should be managed to control the formation of THMs due to the remaining organic matter in water.

Keywords

• organic matter, e. coli, coagulation, adsorption, chlorination