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APPLICATION OF NATURAL CLAYS AND POLY ALUMINIUM CHLORIDE (PAC)

FOR WASTEWATER TREATMENT

Article · April 2013

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IJRRAS 15 (2) ● May 2013 www.arpapress.com/Volumes/Vol15Issue2/IJRRAS_15_2_19.pdf

APPLICATION OF NATURAL CLAYS AND POLY ALUMINIUM

CHLORIDE (PAC) FOR WASTEWATER TREATMENT
Mohammed Awad, Fengting Li* & Wang Hongtao
UNEP-TONGJI Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development, College of Environmental Sciences and
Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
200092
*Corresponding Author: Phone: +86 13501636620; Fax: +86 21 65985059; E-mail: fengting@tongji.edu.cn

ABSTRACT
Release of wastewater into the environment due to anthropogenic industrial or commercial activities is an emerging
challenge for developing countries. This study was conducted to investigate the use of two kinds of available clay
coagulants namely Shendi and Singa, and their combination with Poly Aluminium Chloride (PAC) for wastewater
treatment. The experiments were designed in Completely Randomized Design (CRD) in three replicates using jar
test apparatus for coagulation-flocculation process. The efficiency was calculated by evaluating turbidity, COD, and
colour removal. The removal efficiency for PAC and its combined use with Shendi and Singa for turbidity was
96.2%, 94.8%, and 95.7%, for COD was 70.7%, 63.2%, and 61.1% and for colour removal was 82.1%, 78.1% and
80.7% respectively. While the efficiency of sole use of Shendi and Singa for turbidity was 59.2% and 27.9%, for
COD was 26.3% and 28.1% and for colour was 26.3% and 10.3% respectively.

Keywords: Coagulation-flocculation, wastewater treatment, turbidity removal, COD reduction

1. INTRODUCTION
In most of the big cities in Sudan, industries and agricultural schemes are established on the banks of river Nile and
its tributaries. These establishments are representing the major sources of contaminants to water bodies. The
discharge of most of those establishments don’t receive any treatment and it goes directly to water bodies, this
situation becomes more dangerous in rain season, where rainfall leaches all harmful and toxic matters from upstream
to water downstream. Treating industrial sewages and wastewater is a challenge facing the country due to high cost
of the chemical coagulants. However, there are many local natural materials such as Moringa and some kinds of clay
soils known locally as Ruwage that are being used by local people for water treatment.
Use of clay in water and wastewater treatment has been investigated by many research studies; [1] found that
addition of Bentonite to raw water performed effectively at temperature 20-37C and pH < 8. [2] used Bentonite as
absorbent material for treating municipal wastewater, and they found that COD decreased to < 20mg/L. [3] reported
that organic particles can be absorbed by clay minerals and therefore clays can be used for wastewater treatment. [4]
investigated the effect of clay as coagulant aid with alum in industrial wastewater of paper, and they found that the
combined use of clay and alum is more efficient in colour removal than using alum alone. [5]. reported that
Bentonite can perform effectively at removing certain cationic components from wastewater and it can be used for
treating waters containing heavy color and low turbidity. Recently [6] proved that ruwage performed efficiently at
different levels of turbidity and wide range of pH (3-10).
On the other hand chemical coagulants are intensively and increasingly used at wastewater treatments plants, among
which is Ploy Aluminum Chloride (PAC), which is characterized by various advantages such as working in wide
range of pH and low temperatures and significant efficiency at low concentrations comparing to other conventional
coagulants based on Al- or Fe(III) chlorides and sulfates [7].
The huge discharge of industrial, municipal and drainage wastewater from cities, factories and agricultural schemes
in Sudan into river Nile and its tributaries with limited or no treatments in addition to the cost of the chemical
coagulants are representing the main environmental challenges facing the country. To provide a possible solution,
this study was conducted to investigate the effect of two clay soils as abundant natural coagulants and their
combination with PAC to remove turbidity, COD, and color from wastewater, which will minimize the treatment
cost.

2. MATERIALS AND METHODS

2.1. Jar Test
A conventional jar test apparatus was used in the experiments to coagulate sample of the wastewater collected from
wastewater plant in shanghai by using clay soil coagulants and Poly Aluminum Chloride. The pH of the wastewater
sample was adjusted at 7.2 by adding either H2SO4 or NaOH. The desired dosages of clay soil coagulants, PAC and

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IJRRAS 15 (2) ● May 2013 Awad & al. ● Application of Natural Clays

their combination were added to the beakers of jar test apparatus containing 100 ml of wastewater in each. The
beakers were agitated at 150 rpm for 1 minute and then reduced to 40 and 20 rpm/minute for 7.5 minutes for each
speed. The suspension of the samples was allowed to settle for 30 minutes. Samples of treated wastewater was
taken from the mid depth of the each beaker for analyzing turbidity, COD, colour and pH. The dosage of PAC
applied was 30 mg.L-1 and 400mg.L-1 for Shendi and Singa clay coagulants and for combined use, half dosage of
each was applied.

2.2. Characteristics of wastewater

The collected sample of the wastewater was mixed homogeneously, and then analyzed for turbidity, COD, colour
and pH. Chemical characteristics of the raw wastewater are given in Table 1.

Table 1: Characteristics of water

Parameter Value
Turbidity 46.8 NTU
pH 7.3
Electrical conductivity (E.C) 359 µS/cm
COD 47.15 mg.L-1
Temperature 28.6 oC
Colour 0.484 UV263 nm-abs (cm-1)

2.3. Analytical method

The COD of wastewater was calculated using HACH COD low range (3-150 mg/L), one ml from each sample was
added to prepackaged low range COD vials and then heated in a COD reactor at 150 °C for 2 h. The reacted
mixture in the vials was cooled to a room temperature, and the absorbance of COD solution was measured using a
spectrophotometer at a wavelength of 440 nm.
Turbidity was measured by using turbidity meter (Model-2100 P, HACH, USA). The pH value was determined by
using a pH meter (Model-sensION2, HACH, USA).
Colour was determined using Simadzu UV visible spectrophotometer, model-1700 (Japan), the absorbance of the
samples of treated wastewater was measured in triplicate at 263 nm.
The removal efficiency of turbidity, COD and colour was calculated according to the following formula:
Removal efficiency (%)=((Ci-Cf)/Ci)*100 (1)
Where:
Ci : Initial concentration of the parameter (mg.L-1)
Cf: final concentration of the parameter (mg.L-1)

3. RESULTS AND DISSCUSSION

100
Turbidity removal efficiency %

80

60

40

20

Control Shendi Singa PAC Sh+PAC Sin+PAC

Treatments

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IJRRAS 15 (2) ● May 2013 Awad & al. ● Application of Natural Clays

Figure 1: Effect of PAC, clay soil coagulants and their combinations on turbidity removal efficiency
The effect of PAC and soil coagulants was investigated by comparing treatments using PAC and clay coagulants
individually and their combination using half dose of each. Fig1shows turbidity removal efficiency in which, PAC
and the its combined use with Shendi and Singa clay coagulants performed effectively and the removal efficiency
was 96.2%, 94.8%, and 95.7% to attain final turbidity 1.8 NTU , 2.5NTU , and 2 NTU for PAC, Shendi and Singa
respectively, while the efficiency of single use of shendi and Singa was only 59.2% and 27.9% to attain final
turbidity 19.1 NTU and 33.8 NTU respectively.

80

70

60
COD removal efficiency %

50

40

30

20

10

-10
Control Shendi Singa PAC Sh+PAC Sin+PAC
Treatments

Figure 2: Removal of COD by PAC, clay soil coagulants and their combinations

Fig. 2 shows the COD removal efficiency, where, the highest removal was 70.7%, 63.2%, and 61.1% for PAC and its combined
use with Shendi and Singa respectively, while the efficiency for single use of shendi and singa was 26.3% and 28.1%
respectively.
The results presented in Fig. 2 showed that the quality of treated effluent of combined use of clay coagulants and PAC is quite
satisfactory. These results indicated that clay coagulants could be used for treatment of such wastewaters without further
treatment.

80
Colour removal efficiency %

60

40

20

Control Shendi Singa PAC Sh+PAC Sin+PAC

Treatments

Figure3: effect of PAC, clay soil coagulants and their combinations on colour removal efficienc

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IJRRAS 15 (2) ● May 2013 Awad & al. ● Application of Natural Clays

Colour in water is either result of soluble chemical substances that cannot be separated by filtration or result of
suspended and colloid matters that can be isolated by filtration [8]. The sources of wastewater always contain
suspended materials with low density such as organic compounds that cause high rate of color in water.
The removal of the colour can be achieved by several methods including, filtration, adsorption using granulated and
powder activated carbon, chemical oxidation, biological process and nanofiltration [9]. However, the coagulation
and flocculation process can be used as a simple and accessible alternative method for people in developing
countries.
Fig.3 shows the removal of colour from the wastewater, where PAC and its combined use with Shendi and Singa
achieved maximum removal efficiency 82.1%, 78.1% and 80.7%, while the single use of Shendi and Singa was
26.3% and 10.3%. Single use of both clay coagulants have slight effect on colour removal, however, the combined
use with PAC showed very effective performance similar to single use of PAC without any significant differences.

7.5

7.4
pH value

7.3

7.2

7.1

Control Shendi Singa PAC Sh+PAC Sin+PAC

Treatments

Figure 4: effect of PAC, clay soil coagulants and their combinations on the final pH of the treated wastewater

Coagulation- flocculation process is influenced by the pH value. Highly acidic coagulants may drive the pH down
and consequently decrease the efficiency of the coagulation. However, clay coagulants work efficiently in wide
range of pH (3-10) according to (Mohammed et al., 2013) and therefore can be used for wastewater treatment
without adjusting the pH. As shown on Fig.4 the combined use of clay coagulants with PAC stabilized the pH of the
treated wastewater same as the initial pH value, however, the sole use increased the pH slightly.

4. CONCLUSIONS
Sole use of clay coagulants showed limited efficiency in removal of pollutants from wastewater, whereas the
combined use showed high removal efficiency comparable to that one achieved by PAC. Use of these clays as
coagulants aid with PAC is beneficial and economical and can reduce the cost of the treatment considerably
depending on the characteristics of the wastewaters.

5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study is part of the Africa - China Cooperation Program on Environment which is supported by the Ministry of
Science and Technology of China (MOST) and coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP)(N0. 2010DFA92820 and NO. 2010DFA92800).

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 IJRRAS 15 (2) ● May 2013 Awad & al. ● Application of Natural Clays

6. REFERENCES
[1]. Lund , E. and Nissen , B. , “ Low Technology Water Purification By Bentonite Clay Flocculation as Performed
in Saoanese Villages Verological Examination“,Water Reasearch,VOL.20,NO.1,1986, P.37
[2]. Gersberg , R.M. ; Lyon , S.R. ; Brenner , R. and Elkin , B.V. , “ Performance of Clay-Alum Flocculation (
CCBA ) Process for Virus Removal From Municipal Wastewater “ , Water Research , Vol. 22 , No.11 , 1988 ,
P.1449 .
[3]. Hobson , G.D. and Pohl , W. , Modern Pef. Tech., Applied Science Publishers , England P.310 (1973) .
[4]. Dilek , FB. and Bese , S. , “ Treatment of Pulping Effluents by Using Alum and Clay-Colour Removal and
Sludge Characteristics “ , Water SA , 27 , 3 (2001) .
[5]. Abdelaal A. M., EL-Salmawy M.S. and Abdelrahman A. A, Using a Small Dosage of Coagulants to Improve
the Efficiency of Flocculation Process, The Fifth Egyptian Syrian Conference In Chemical and Petroleum
Engineering, Faculty of Petroleum & Mining Engineering, Suez, Egypt, Vol I., pp. 300-312, October 13-16, 2003.
[6]. Mohammed Awad, Fengting Li and Hongtao Wang, An Investigative Study on Natural Soil Coagulants in
Sudan, Journal of Applied Sciences in Environmental Sanitation, 2013.
[7]. Gordana Bogoeva Gaceva, Aleksandra Buzarovska, Bojan Dimazoski, Descoloration of Synthetic Dyeing
Wastewater Using Polyaluminium Chloride, G.U.Journal of science 21 (4) : 123-128 (2008).
[8]. Spellman, F. R., (2008). The science of water concepts and application. 2. CRC Press, 90-110.
[9]. Naimabadi, A., Movahedian Attar, H., Shahsavani, A., (2009). Decolonization and biological degradation of azo
dye reactive red2 by anaerobic/aerobic sequential process. Iran. J. Environ. Health. Sci. Eng., 6(2): 67-72.

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