ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Response Surface Analysis for Sewage Wastewater
Treatment Using Natural Coagulants
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1
School of Chemical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, 632014, India
2
Chemical Engineering Section, Salalah College of Technology, Salalah 211, Oman
Submission date: 2020-02-29
Final revision date: 2020-04-10
Acceptance date: 2020-04-14
Online publication date: 2020-09-28
Publication date: 2021-01-20
Corresponding author
Arlene Abuda Joaquin
School of Chemical Engineering, Vellore institute of Technology, Vellore, India
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2021;30(2):1215-1225
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ABSTRACT
The studies on utilization of natural coagulants prepared from seeds of Citrullus lanatus
(watermelon) and Cucumis melo (cantaloupe) provide insight on sewage wastewater treatment.
The results were statistically analyzed by response surface methodology (RSM) based central composite
design (CCD), and supported with results from Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy for
functional groups present in coagulants. The batch coagulation studies were performed varying process
parameters such as pH (5-7) and coagulant dosage (50-150 mg/L) at constant flocculant dosage of
10 mg/L using jar test. In jar test, coagulation was carried out with fast mixing (Mixing at 150 rpm for
1 min) followed by slow mixing (Mixing at 50 rpm for 30 min), and the final mixture was allowed to
settle for 1 h at the temperature of 30±2ºC. Design-Expert® version 12 software was used to optimize
pH and coagulant dosage for effective sewage wastewater treatment using natural coagulants with
the objectives to maximize percentage reduction in turbidity, biological/biochemical oxygen demand
(BOD), total suspended solids (TSS), and chemical oxygen demand (COD). The RSM results reveal that
the optimum C. lanatus coagulant dosage of 72.3 mg/L at pH 5 achieved maximum efficacy removal of
TSS and BOD by 92.8% and 92.1% respectively. The FTIR results show that the coagulants from plant
seeds contain almost similar functional groups. Thus, it can be concluded that the coagulant prepared
from C. lanatus would be more effective for treatment of sewage wastewater.