Comparison of the Performance of Poly Aluminum Chloride with Natural Co-coagulants in Removal of Turbidity from synthetic aqueous solution

Abstract

Background: Contaminated water, naturally or by human, should be processed to become drinking water. Coagulation is a process that fine unsettling particles which called colloids and are important factors in the turbidity occurrence, join together and settle. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and comparison of the performance of poly aluminum chloride accompany with corn starch and okra, as a co-coagulant agent, to remove turbidity from water. Methods: This research was descriptive-functional study. In this study, the effect of two natural co-coagulant agents, corn starch and okra, with poly aluminum chloride were evaluated and R and SAS software were used in order to experimental design and data analysis. Also, after the analysis of variance, LSD test was used to compare treatment averages. Results: In the initial turbidity of 250 NTU, poly aluminum chloride and corn starch (5 ppm and 0.7 ppm, respectively), the highest percentage of turbidity removal was observed which could reduce the turbidity up to 98.48% and reached at 3.73 NTU. Moreover, in the initial turbidity of 500 NTU, maximum turbidity reduction related to poly aluminum chloride and okra (5 ppm and 0.7 ppm, respectively) which reduced the turbidity up to 98.38% and reached at 8.1 NTU. Conclusions: As an economic aspect, replacement of natural polymers with synthetic polymers which have higher costs is economic and also higher turbidity reduction may be observed in compare with using chemical coagulants, solely. In addition, chemical coagulants consumption reduces, however more researches must be conducted on residual natural co-coagulants and interactions between chemical and natural and also their health effects on consumers.

Keywords

• Corn starch
• okra
• PAC
• Coagulation and flocculation
• Turbidity removal.