Abstract
The treatment of water by coagulation, flocculation and sedimentation, is a highly realized treatment throughout the world, and the most commonly used coagulant substances are aluminum sulphate, aluminum polychloride and ferric chloride; these substances produce a large quantity of sludge with high aluminum and iron salts, the production of these coagulants is carried out by complex chemical reactions, which demand a large amount of natural resources and produce sludge with high concentrations of these metals, and has shown that aluminum is toxic to plants and animals in different ways; This study shows the comparison of efficiencies between aluminum sulphate and a chickpea extract, which shows a very important coagulant activity. The turbidity and color removal efficiency were evaluated using an anionic coagulant obtained from Kabuli Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L) with an isoelectric point at pH of 3,7, its performance being compared with aluminum sulphate, for the treatment of synthetic water. Laboratory-scale synthetic solutions were prepared at initial values of 200 NTU. Parameters such as turbidity, color, pH and conductivity were measured. The Jar test was used to determine the optimal doses of coagulants, using 70, 80, 90 and 100 mg / L doses for the anionic coagulant and 60, 70, 80 and 90 doses of aluminum sulphate mg / l. The highest removal of turbidity and color was for the anionic coagulant with 98% and 94.71% with a dose of 90 mg / L and in the case of aluminum sulphate values of turbidity removal of 97.5% and of Color of 93.94% with the same dose, respectively. For the tests performed values were obtained within the range established by current Colombian legislation. It was concluded that the anionic coagulant can be used as a primary coagulant.
