Rachdi Raouen, Srarfi Feyda, Shimi Najet Slim
Palaeo-Environment Geomaterials and Geological Threats, Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, A campus university 2092, El Manar Tunis, Tunisia E-mail:
Water Sci Technol. 2017 Oct;76(7-8):1875-1883. doi: 10.2166/wst.2017.370.
The cactus tree, species Opuntia ficus-indica, is a primary material of many products in various domains such as cosmetics, medicine and nutrition. In the present work, we assess its potential as a flocculant. We tried a technique which adopts three sequential treatments that used coagulation, flocculation and sedimentation processes under certain operating conditions. For this purpose, we used the aluminum sulfate (AS) as coagulant and fresh cladodes juice (FCJ) as bioflocculant. All tests were carried out on high turbid urban wastewater collected from the Metlaoui's Wastewater Treatment Plant (MWTP) (in Gafsa in southwest Tunisia). Experiments with this couple AS/FCJ show very interesting results: a high-removal of turbidity (TUR), suspended solids (SS) and chemical oxygen demand (COD). The percentages of abatement of these parameters are respectively 93.65%, 82.75% and 64.30%. The experimental results of the present study prove that the turbidity, SS and COD removal efficiency of new technique is superior to that of conventional process (with only AS). By this technique, we save 50% in AS dose. Moreover, flocs formed by the treatment using AS/FCJ are coarse and readily settleable.
仙人掌树，学名为仙人掌属的印度榕仙人掌，是化妆品、医药和营养等各个领域许多产品的主要原料。在本研究中，我们评估了其作为絮凝剂的潜力。我们尝试了一种技术，该技术采用三种连续处理方法，即在特定操作条件下使用混凝、絮凝和沉淀过程。为此，我们使用硫酸铝（AS）作为混凝剂，新鲜仙人掌茎汁（FCJ）作为生物絮凝剂。所有测试均针对从梅特劳伊污水处理厂（MWTP）（位于突尼斯西南部的加夫萨）收集的高浊度城市污水进行。使用AS/FCJ这一组合进行的实验显示出非常有趣的结果：对浊度（TUR）、悬浮固体（SS）和化学需氧量（COD）的去除率很高。这些参数的去除百分比分别为93.65%、82.75%和64.30%。本研究的实验结果证明，新技术对浊度、SS和COD的去除效率优于传统工艺（仅使用AS）。通过这种技术，我们将AS用量节省了50%。此外，使用AS/FCJ处理形成的絮凝物粗大且易于沉降。
