Faculty of Earth Science, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, Jeli Campus, Locked Bag 100, 17600 Jeli, Kelantan, Malaysia
Department of Sanitary Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, P.O. Box 5048, 2600 GA Delft, the Netherlands
S. G. J. Heijman
Department of Sanitary Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, P.O. Box 5048, 2600 GA Delft, the Netherlands
L. C. Rietveld
Department of Sanitary Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, P.O. Box 5048, 2600 GA Delft, the Netherlands
Abstract. In this study, a new treatment alternative is investigated to remove micropollutants from wastewater effectively and in a more cost-effective way. A potential solution is the use of clay in combination with biodegradable polymeric flocculants. Flocculation is viewed as the best method to get the optimum outcome from the combination of clay with starch. Clay is naturally abundantly available and relatively inexpensive compared to the conventional adsorbents used. Experimental studies were carried out with four different clays to select the best clay for further optimisation. The atrazine removal achieved is in the range of 10–99 % based on the clay concentration of 10–50 g L−1. Optimisation of the best clay performer leads towards atrazine reduction of > 99 % with a dosage of 100 mg L−1. The best and underperforming clays were then tested in other experiments with the addition of cationic starch flocculants. In this experiment, the addition of a polymer increased the atrazine removal for the underperforming clay to 46 % with only 10 mg L−1 clay dosages. The clay flocculation test was also performed to test the flocculation efficiency of clays by the polymer. Approximately 80–84 % of the clay is flocculated, which shows exceptional flocculation efficiency in removing both clays and atrazine from the water matrices.
In this study, the use of clay in combination with biodegradable polymeric flocculants is investigated to remove micropollutants from wastewater effectively. Experimental studies were carried out with four different clays to select the best clay for further optimisation. The removal achieved is in the range of 10-99% based on the clay concentration of 10 mg/L-50 g/L. The clay flocculation efficiency test leads towards 80-84% of the clay being flocculated by the polymer from the water matrixes.
In this study, the use of clay in combination with biodegradable polymeric flocculants is...