New Approach to Remove Heavy Metals from Wastewater by the Coagulation of Alginate-Rhamnolipid Solution with Aluminum Sulfate

Abstract

This study was conducted using alginate-rhamnolipid (Alg-Rh) solutions on copper ions (Cu2+) as an application of coagulation with aluminum sulfate (Al2(SO4)3). The results show that solid phases were rapidly formed as an output of the reaction between Alg-Rh and Al2(SO4)3. It could be considered that the Al2(SO4)3 concentration and the existence of Cu2+ have an impact on forming hard coagulation, in that the total volume has been increased with increasing Al2(SO4)3 and the existence of Cu2+. The number of ions of aluminum (Al3+) and sulfate (SO42−) were also increased with Al2(SO4)3. The efficiency of Cu2+ removal was constant above 75.0%, hence the average value was 76.8%.