Utilization of Papaya Seeds as Natural Coagulant for Synthetic Textile Coloring Agent Wastewater Treatment

Abstract

Textile wastewater contains a lot of pollutants which is hazardous if directly discharged. Coagulation and flocculation using inorganic salts were widely used to treat textile wastewater. However this method pose some drawbacks, such as high coagulant cost, large volume of sludge was produced, and potential health problems if the water is consumed. In this study we explore utilization of natural coagulant as an alternative to inorganic salts to treat textile wastewater. This study describes utilization of papaya seeds powder as a natural coagulant for synthetic textile wastewater of drimarene dark red (DDR) with initial concentration of 10 mg/L. The effect of coagulant dosage and pH to the %removal of colour in wastewater was studied using central composite design. The potential active functional groups in papaya seeds powder was characterized using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). It was found that papaya seeds powder contained –OH, -NH, C=O functional groups that indicate good potential as natural coagulant. The cubic model obtained was in good fit with experimental data, which was shown in R-squared value of 0.995. It was found that coagulant dosage, pH, and its interaction were significant to the removal of synthetic dye in wastewater. The decrease of pH gave higher %removal due to protonation of papaya seeds powder active coagulating agent resulting on better electrostatic interaction with dyes. The increase of dosage also gave increase in %removal until its optimum condition. After optimum condition, the %removal decreased due to colloid re-stabilization. The optimum condition was obtained at dosage of 0.57g/L and pH 1.97 with 84.77% of predicted colour removal and this result was in agreement with experimental response value.