Revolutionizing Water Treatment: Optimizing Moringa and Date Seed Extracts for Enhanced Alum Coagulation in Surface Water

Due to the increasing dependency on chemical coagulants in water treatment in Jordan, which carries environmental and health risks, this study seeks to enhance the coagulation process using eco-friendly alternative coagulants, specifically Moringa oleifera seeds (MOS), which is well-known as a natural coagulant, and Date SeedExtract (DSE), which has few studies in water turbidity reduction, in comparison to the conventional coagulant (Alum) and substituting that either wholly at different dosages or partly in ratios (70%, 50%, 30%). Utilizing response surface methodology (RSM), the study examines various factors influencing turbidity removal, including pH, coagulant type and dosage, and settling conditions. The findings indicate that combining natural coagulants with Alum enhances turbidity removal efficiency. A mixture of 30% Moringa and 70% Alum achieved a turbidity removal of 97.7%, outperforming MOS alone, which reached 94% at a 60-minute settling time. DSE, although showing a lower initial performance with 91.56% turbidity removal at optimal dosage, demonstrated significant improvement when combined with Alum. Specifically, a combination of 30% DSE and 70% Alum achieved 98% turbidity removal, while 50% DSE and 50% Alum reached 96.5% at 90 minutes. Additionally, the best results from the naturalcoagulants alone were observed with a combination of 70% MOS and 30% DSE, yielding a turbidity removal of 93.23%, followed by 50% MOS and 50% DSE at 92.57%. The study concludes that the strategic combination of natural and chemical coagulants not only enhances removal efficiency but also allows for a 30% reduction in chemical coagulant usage, thereby minimizing economic, operational, and environmental impacts.