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Effectiveness of using water-extracted Leucaena leucocephala seeds as a coagulant for turbid water treatment: effects of dosage, pH, mixing speed, mixing time, and settling time

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Abstract

Natural materials have a high potential to be used as coagulant/flocculant owing to the problems of inorganic materials. Petai belalang (Leucaena leucocephala) is a widely abundant plant in Malaysia and very efficient as a plant-based coagulant in previous research. This research investigated the effectiveness of seeds of L. leucocephala in removing turbidity from synthetic wastewater and the effect of operation parameters of jar test on treatment performance through optimization of dosage, pH, rapid mixing speed and time, slow mixing speed and time, and settling time. The water extraction method was used to extract the active ingredients from the seeds by drying and pulverizing the seeds and then dissolving them in distilled water at a concentration of 20 g/L. The extraction solution of the seeds gives removal efficiency of turbidity of 93.05% at the optimum operation parameters dosage, pH, rapid mixing speed and time, slow mixing speed and time, and settling time of 120 mg/L, 6.5, 260 rpm for 11 min, 30 rpm for 15 min, and 30 min, respectively. It is expected that bridging was the possible mechanism given that the flocs are formed under the same negative zeta potential condition. With this high performance of L. leucocephala, it has high potential to be used as a coagulant in wastewater treatment at specific operation parameters with further exploration to determine the optimum extraction method of the active ingredients.

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Abbreviations

L. leucocephala :

Leucaena leucocephala

pI:

Isoelectric point

TDS:

Total dissolved solids

EC:

Electrical conductivity

FTIR:

Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy

BSA:

Bovine serum albumin

OVAT:

One variable at one time

SPSS:

Statistical package for the social sciences

ANOVA:

Analysis of variance

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Funding

Long Term Research Grant Scheme (LRGS/1/2018/USM/01/1/1) (LRGS/2018/USM-UKM/EWS/01) granted by the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600, UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia

    Mohammad Mohammad Alnawajha, Siti Rozaimah Sheikh Abdullah, Hassimi Abu Hasan, Ahmad Razi Othman & Setyo Budi Kurniawan

  2. Research Centre for Sustainable Process Technology (CESPRO), Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600, UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia

    Hassimi Abu Hasan

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  1. Mohammad Mohammad Alnawajha
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  2. Siti Rozaimah Sheikh Abdullah
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  5. Setyo Budi Kurniawan
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Contributions

MMA: investigation, formal analysis, resources, data curation, writing — original draft, visualization, SRSA: supervision, funding acquisition, conceptualization, methodology, validation, writing — review & editing, HAH: supervision, funding acquisition, visualization, ARO: supervision, funding acquisition, visualization, SBK: writing — original draft, writing — review & editing, data curation, visualization.

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Correspondence to Mohammad Mohammad Alnawajha or Siti Rozaimah Sheikh Abdullah.

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Alnawajha, M.M., Abdullah, S.R.S., Hasan, H.A. et al. Effectiveness of using water-extracted Leucaena leucocephala seeds as a coagulant for turbid water treatment: effects of dosage, pH, mixing speed, mixing time, and settling time. Biomass Conv. Bioref. 14, 11203–11216 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-022-03233-2

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