Performance of natural coagulant extracted from tapioca and corn flour for the treatment of tofu wastewater

Abstract

Present study investigates the ability of tapioca and corn flour for turbidity, total suspended solids (TSS) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal from tofu wastewater. The active coagulant agent were succesfully extracted from tapioca and corn flour using NaCl (namely tapioca and corn extract) and Amberlite resin (namely tapioca ionic and corn ionic). Experiment were conducted in batch mode for initial turbidity of 527 NTU, initial TSS 740 mg/L and initial COD 13,015.04 mg/L. Results demonstrated that tapioca extract is less efficient in turbidity, TSS and COD removal compare to corn extract. Corn extract was found to provide high turbidity removal with efficiency of 71% and TSS removal with efficiency of 35%. Meanwhile, corn ionic was reported have the highest ability in COD removal and reached 31.71% efficiency. Thus, the natural coagulants extracted from NaCl and Amberlite resin revealed to be effective only for turbidity removal.