Banana Peel Coagulant in Turbidity
Banana Peel Coagulant in Turbidity
Banana Peel Coagulant in Turbidity
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Faculty of Engineering Technology, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, 26300, Gambang, Pahang, Malaysia
*Email: [email protected]; [email protected]
Abstract- Coagulation is an effective, simple and widely practiced water treatment method. However,
the usage of chemical coagulant pose detrimental effect on living organism and human health as well
as producing large amount of toxic sludge. This study describes the utilization of banana peel as a
natural coagulant for the treatment of household wastewater. The natural coagulant extracted from
banana peel was prepared by using simple extraction method. Synthetic wastewater was used in this
study to imitate the medium strength household wastewater. The parameters investigated in this study
were pH of wastewater, coagulant dosage, and solvent of extraction. The effectiveness of the natural
coagulant was evaluated based on the reduction of turbidity during the treatment process. The treatment
of synthetic wastewater using banana peel coagulant was found to be the most effective at pH 1 and
dosage of 100 mg/l whereas the most effective solvent to extract this type of fruit waste is sodium
hydroxide (NaOH). In present work, it can be concluded that the banana peel coagulant was highly
feasible in removing turbidity of the synthetic wastewater with removal efficiency of 88% under
optimum condition.
I. INTRODUCTION
Water is one of the key factors for economic development worldwide as it is widely used in different
productive sectors including industry, agricultural production, livestock and urban supply. The fast-
paced industrialization, economic growth and population growth in developing countries has implicated
in unpredicted water requirement in cities. In the last few decades, the water used capacity and
wastewater production in domestic sectors has increased remarkably [1]. Wastewater treatment is a
crucial process in sanitation system. Effective municipal wastewater resource treatment and
contamination control are necessary to ensure compliance to environment compliance and reutilization
of resources.
Amongst the wide range of existing methods accessible for wastewater treatment, coagulation
and flocculation process is the most preferable. This treatment is commonly being practiced as it is cost
effective, reliable, simple and best regarded as low-energy consuming process [2]. This established
physical-chemical process removes colloidal, suspended and soluble particles efficiently by prompting
aggregation of macro and micro particles into larger size proceeded by sedimentation [2]. In
conventional treatment processes, various types of coagulants are often used depending on chemical
traits of the contaminants present in the wastewater. The inorganic and synthetic organic polymer
coagulants include alum, ferric chloride, calcium carbonate as well as polyaluminium chloride were
generally used in the wastewater treatment [3]. Despite that, such treatment leads to disposal problems
as the sludge obtained after the treatment using aluminium salts risks accumulation in the environment
[4]. At the same time, synthetic organic polymers like acrylamide possess carcinogenic and neurotoxic
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effects [5]. The alternative solution to these problems is replacement of metal and synthetic coagulants
with natural coagulants which are more environmental friendly.
Plant extracts derived from seeds, leaves, root, barks and fruits have been used in water
purification process ever since ancient times [6]. Natural coagulants exhibit various benefits which
include reduction in production of sludge, lower cost, restrain variations in the pH of treated water,
innocuity and provide greater biodegradability [7-10]. Researchers on biological originated coagulants
that have been studied include okra [11], nirmali plant [12], Moringa Oleifera [13] and chitosan [14].
In addition, Jahn (2001) has also conducted experimental study on the performance of apricot, peach
kernel and beans in clarifying water [15]. In the current study, banana peel is developed into a source
of natural coagulant. Banana plants belong to the family of Musaceae and species of Musa which
includes M. Acuminata, M. Sapientum, M. Paradisiaca, and M. Cavendishii are grown worldwide [16].
Banana tree can bear fruit almost 3 to 20 hands in a cluster once in a lifetime which leads to huge
amount of biomass waste generated from the tree [17]. The Southeast Asian countries including
Malaysia, India and Japan has initially cultivated banana plant. Nevertheless, some species are regarded
to be genetically connected with species of banana from Africa [18].
There are different parts of banana that can be utilized like banana fruit peels, piths, trunks,
leaves and pseudo-stems. These wastes from banana plants have been analysed extensively as solid
adsorbent to remove various pollutants [18-21]. One of the important wastes generated in large
quantities is banana peel as this fruit is highly consumed and constitutes almost 40% of total weight of
the fresh fruit [19]. Banana peel is rich in organic compounds such as pectin substances, chlorophyll
pigments cellulose, hemicellulose, and other compounds of low molecular weight [22]. Mohapatra et
al. (2010) has experimentally verified that banana peels are good source of galacturonic acid, pectin
(10-21 %), lignin (6-12 %), cellulose (7.6-9.6 %) and hemicelluloses (6.4-9.4 %) [16]. The aim of this
research is to investigate the effectiveness of banana peel as a potential coagulant to reduce turbidity of
synthetic wastewater by varying different pH of wastewater, dosage of coagulant and types of solvents
for extraction. The standard jar test was carried out to determine the performance of extracted banana
peel with respect to its coagulation activity. Synthetic sewage used in this work was prepared by using
commercial cat food to imitate the original composition of domestic wastewater and the details
comparison with the literature is shown in Table 1. Normally, it is common to use the cat food as the
Complex Organic Particulate Artificial Sewage (COPAS) material for representing the actual domestic
wastewater. This type of COPAS is easily prepared, cheap and commercially available. Prior to the
synthetic wastewater preparation, no special procedure is needed as the desired particle size can be
obtained just by grinding process. In addition, the dried granular cat food for COPAS did not requires
any specific preservation method as the chemical composition can be maintained under ambient
condition in the room temperature throughout prolonged storage [23].
2.1 Materials
Banana (Musa Acuminata species) peels were collected from Kuantan, Pahang market. Analytical-
grade hydrochloric acid (HCl), sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and sodium chloride (NaCl) were purchased
from Fisher Scientific Malaysia. The cat food used for this study was a commercial brand, Whiskas ®
(Ocean Fish Flavor) obtained from Gambang, Pahang grocery store.
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in Table 1. The analysis on Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD),
Total Suspended Solid (TSS), Ammonia Nitrogen (NH3-N), Nitrate Nitrogen (NO3-N) and phosphorus
(P) of the synthetic wastewater were conducted based on standard APHA method.
reductionof turbidity (NTU ) = initial turbidity (NTU ) − final turbidity (NTU ) (1)
The best pH of wastewater obtained was then applied to evaluate different dosages of coagulant within
range of 10 mg/L to 120 mg/L. After completing these experiments with distilled water extracted
coagulant, the active compounds from banana peel were extracted using NaCl of concentrations 1 M,
0.5 M, 0.1 M, and 0.05 M as well as NaOH of concentrations 0.1 M, 0.05 M, 0.01 M and 0.005 M. The
concentration of solvent that were used similar as to rambutan seeds extraction done by Zurina et al
[27]. This is to determine whether the same concentration works well for banana peel. These suspension
of different concentration were used as coagulant respectively with the most effective pH of wastewater
and dosage of coagulant based on earlier experiment results [27, 31].
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As for this experiment, the pH of the synthetic wastewater was varied according to the range proposed
in this study. The coagulation test was performed with banana peel extracted using distilled water. The
results obtained from the coagulation test by using banana peel extract are shown in Figure 1. The error
bars in the figure indicates the standard deviation of triplicate experiments. From this experiment, it can
be seen that the pH of wastewater mainly affects the surface charge of coagulants as well as the
suspension stabilization. The coagulation performance of banana peel in reducing turbidity favoured
the acidic condition. It was observed that the banana peel extract works best at pH 1. Highest turbidity
reduction can be obtained at this particular pH which recorded result of 73% reduction. The result
obtained were compared with the study conducted by Kakoi et al. in which the extracted banana pith
coagulant worked best under acidic condition [21]. In their work, they managed to obtain turbidity
reduction of 98% at pH 4 where the water appeared to be clearer and more flocs were observed. The
effectiveness starts declining gradually when the pH is increased from 2 to 12. It was observed that the
water turns cloudier and less flocs was found after the settling process due to the incremental pH from
2 to 12. The lowest turbidity reduction was found at pH 12 when the wastewater condition is most
alkaline. The turbidity reduction was only 21% which indicates the least effective pH for banana peel
to perform as natural coagulant. The coagulative behaviour of banana peel decreases when the alkalinity
of the wastewater increases as within the range of pH 8 to pH 12. Thus, it is clearly shows that banana
peel can perform very well in acidic condition. It can be assumed that the active agent that contribute
to the effectiveness of the banana peel coagulant is mainly comes from the composition of proteins
present in the fruit waste. This is because the larger the molecular weight of these polymers, the longer
a polymeric chain can be. It would encourage the coagulation process as higher active sites are freely
available for the particles to exhibit the adsorption mechanism [27]. As reported by Lestari et al. the
acidic condition of wastewater promotes the attraction towards the positive charges on the amino acids
in the molecules of protein. his might enhance and influence the performance of the molecules to
perform efficiently as coagulant agent [28]. The charge on the protein itself depends on the values of
pH which resulted in different turbidity reduction especially when the pH is increased. It is believed
that the net cationic potential of the coagulant for coagulation process decreases when the positive and
negative charges of different amino acids in the protein increases. Thus, this phenomenon significantly
affects the turbidity reduction of the synthetic wastewater.
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70
60
Turbidity Reduction (NTU)
50
40
30
20
10
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
pH
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70
60
Turbidity Reduction (NTU)
50
40
30
20
10
0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120
Dosage of Coagulant (mg/L)
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80
70 0.1 M 0.05 M
0.01 M
Turbidity Reduction (NTU)
0.005 M
60
50
1M
0.5 M
40
0.1 M 0.05 M
30
20
10
0
NaCl NaOH Distilled water
IV. CONCLUSIONS
The results obtained from the present study show the feasibility of locally available banana peel as
natural coagulant on the turbidity reduction of synthetic household wastewater. The optimum pH for
effective coagulation process using banana peel extract was found to be at acidic pH which was less
than pH 3. The optimum dosage that effectively reduced turbidity was determined to be 100 mg/L. In
terms of solvent extraction, NaOH was found to be the suitable solvent to extract the active compound
in banana peel. Hence, banana peel which that creates a generous amount of waste has the potential to
function as natural coagulant. Further studies should be carried out to precisely identify the specific
components in the banana peel that assist in the coagulation process as well as study the potential of
this locally waste in reducing other water quality parameters to make it widely accepted as the new
coagulant.
V. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors gratefully acknowledge Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP) for the financial assistance
using Grant RDU170315 and also providing MRS scholarship
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