Use of Aloe vera as an Organic Coagulant for Improving Drinking Water Quality

Abstract

The coagulation–flocculation–sedimentation process is widely used for removal of suspended solids and water turbidity reduction. The most common coagulants used to conduct this process are aluminum sulfate and ferric sulfate. In this paper, the use of Aloe vera as a natural-based coagulant for drinking water treatment was tested. The bio-coagulant was used in two different forms: powder as well as liquid; the latter was extracted with distilled water used as a solvent. The obtained results showed that the use of the natural coagulant (Aloe vera) in both powder (AV-Powder) and liquid (AV-H2O) forms reduced the water turbidity at natural pH by 28.23% and 87.84%, respectively. Moreover, it was found that the use of the two previous forms of bio-coagulant for drinking water treatment had no significant influence on the following three parameters: pH, alkalinity, and hardness. The study of the effect of pH on the process performance using Aloe vera as a bio-coagulant demonstrated that the maximum turbidity removal efficiency accounted for 53.53% and 88.23% using AV-Powder and AV-H2O, respectively, at optimal pH 6.