TREATMENT OF LEAD CONTAMINATED WASTEWATER USING ALUMINIUM SULPHATE AND MORINGA OLEIFERA AS COAGULANTS

Abstract

Treatment of lead-contaminated water using aluminium sulphate and Moringa oleifera as coagulants has been studied. Proximate analysis on the moringa oleifera seed showed that it has a high protein content of 32.57%, whereas moisture and ash contents were 6.82% and 6.02%.This showed that moringa olefera performed better than aluminium sulphate because of it’s higher percentage of protein content. In addition, the crude fibre and fat contents were 17.5% and 29.44% respectively. The Fourier Transform Infra-Red of (Agilent Technologies CARY 630 model) was used. The spectra revealed several functional groups of ≡C-H stretch of alkynes,C=O stretch of ester, N-H bend of amides and =C-H bend of alkenes which were naturally present in the moringa oleifera. In thecoagulation-flocculation process, effects of five selected parameters were studied as they ultimately have an effect on the process. They were effects of pH which showed that both moringa oleifera and aluminium sulphate has better pH for water treatment. Settling time for the two coagulants were good this aids for their good performance. Aluminum sulphate has a higher removal of 71.36% at 600C while moringa olerifera has 64.54% removal at 600C. Moringa olefera has optimum dosage of 2.00g with 71.59% as the percentage removal while aluminium sulphate has 2.50g with 74.99% as the percentage removal. The optimum lead removal at the concentration of 14mg/L for the both coagulants were 71.42% for moringa oleifera and 75.01% for aluminium sulphate. From the investigation, moringa oleifera is better than aluminium sulphate because it is a natural polymer with no harm to human health , environmental friendly and available in the market and can be planted as an economic tree in Nigeria. Aluminium sulphate cannot be compared to a natural substance like moringa oleifera in performance.