ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Wastewater Flocculation Using a New Hybrid
Copolymer: Modeling and Optimization
by Response Surface Methodology
Ammar Salman Dawood1,2, Yilian Li1
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1Environmental Studies Faculty, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
2Faculty of Engineering, University of Basrah, Basrah, Iraq
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2014;23(1):43-50
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
A new hybrid inorganic-organic copolymer, aluminum chloride-poly(acrylamide-co-acrylic acid), was
prepared using the free radical polymerization method and employed in this study. The hybrid copolymer was
characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and
energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS). This hybrid copolymer was used in the flocculation of wastewater
as a new flocculant. The design variables in the flocculation experiments were hybrid copolymer dosage
and wastewater pH. The central composite design (CCD) for the response surface methodology (RSM)
approach was used to develop a mathematical model and to optimize the parameters of the flocculation process
in terms of optimal removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solids (TSS), and turbidity.
After applying the analysis of variance (ANOVA) of all quadratic models, it was found that the obtained value
of the correlation coefficient (R2) was more than 0.98 for all models. The optimum hybrid copolymer dosage
was 125 mg/l and the optimum pH 7.55. Under these optimum values, the wastewater treatment achieved
97%, 98.6%, and 88.6% removal of turbidity, TSS, and COD, respectively.