Coagulative behaviour of Jatropha curcas and its performance in wastewater treatment

Alternative natural coagulants from Jatropha curcas seed and press cake were investigated for coagulative behaviors and abilities to treat real wastewater. The characterization of the seed and press cake was done by proximate analysis while characterization on extracts which contain the active coagulant agent was conducted using FTIR, amino acid analysis, and zeta potential. The coagulation performance was evaluated using Jar Floc test on palm oil mill effluent. Proximate analysis indicated that Jatropha seed contained more protein (54%) than press cake (28%). Through HPLC analysis, 18 types of amino acid were detected in Jatropha curcas (JC) seed and press cake extracts. FTIR results confirmed the functional groups that existed in all the amino acids. The zeta potential of the extracts was positive at pH  4, respectively. Hence, the mechanism of coagulation at pH  4, adsorption and interparticle bridging dominates. Dosages of 140 mg L−1 of Jatropha seed and 120 mg L−1 of press cake were required to treat 3500 NTU of POME to give 99 and 93% turbidity removal, respectively. Jatropha seed gave maximum turbidity removal at pH 3, while press cake at pH 2. The final pH of the treated POME was not altered greatly and the sludge produced was lesser in comparison to alum. In conclusion, the protein was the compound responsible for Jatropha coagulating behavior and its ability to treat real wastewater is promising

Optimization of a method to extract the active coagulant agent from jatropha curcas seeds for use in turbidity removal.

An improved and alternative method for the extraction of the active coagulant agent from Jatropha curcas seeds was developed and compared with the conventional water extraction method (JCSC-DW). In the new method, the seeds were extracted using different solvents in different concentrations, using NaCl (JCSC-NaCl) and NaOH (JCSC-NaOH) to extract the active coagulant agent from the Jatropha. In addition, ultrasound was investigated as a potential method to assist the extraction process. Batch coagulation experiments were conducted to evaluate the performance of the extracted coagulant achieved through various schemes. The effects of the dosage, pH and concentration of solvents were investigated for optimum turbidity removal at different values of initial synthetic wastewater turbidity from 50 to 500 NTU. JCSC-NaCl at 0.5 M was found to provide a high turbidity removal of >99% compared to JCSC-DW and JCSC-NaOH at pH 3 using 120 mg/l of the coagulant agent. Among these three solvents, NaOH demonstrated the lowest performance in turbidity removal. The conventional extraction method of the active coagulant agent by blending the seeds in solvents for 2 min alone sufficiently extracts most of the coagulant component from the Jatropha seed and provides up to 99.4% turbidity removal. Blending assisted by ultrasound demonstrated comparable turbidity removal in a shorter period of time and thus showed a potential to be used on a larger scale. Analysis was undertaken to determine the protein content as this is believed to be the coagulating agent. It was found that extraction of the coagulant agent using NaCl yielded more protein compared to when using water and NaOH

Effect of storage conditions on Jatropha curcas performance as biocoagulant for treating palm oil mill effluent

Background and Objective: Jatropha curcas has been shown to be an effective bio-coagulant in turbidity removal for water and wastewater. In this work, the effect of storage time and conditions of the Jatropha curcas coagulant agent had been investigated and Palm Oil Mill Effluent was used as the sample wastewater. Materials and Methods: Jatropha seed and presscake was stored at room temperature and the coagulant was extracted at 1st, 3rd and 5th month for performance evaluation in coagulation. Next, the coagulant was extracted and stored in different conditions. The effect on the coagulation process was evaluated and the bio-coagulant quality was analysed using FTIR and Bradford method. Results: Results showed that the turbidity removal reduced from 99-92% as storage time increased. Storing at lower temperature resulted to reduce significant degradation of biocoagulant quality and able to maintain the coagulation performance. Conclusion: These findings were supported by the FTIR and protein content analysis. These findings suggested that storage conditions greatly affect the performance of Jatropha curcas as a coagulant