Optimization of Moringa oleifera cationic protein/zeolite adsorbent blend for synthetic turbid water treatment

Due to the significance of water purification in recent years, there has been an increasing desire to optimize process parameters for effective water treatment. The main barrier to using Moringa oleifera for clarifying water has been the presence of excess organic matter left in the water from the seed leading to bacterial re-growth thereby requiring additional water treatment, which is wasteful and time-consuming; therefore Moringa oleifera cationic protein (MOCP) on zeolite substrate was used for this study. Among various approaches for achieving desired optimized properties, Central Composite Design (CCD) remains an effective and reliable technique. Thus, the optimization of the performance evaluation of MOCP on a zeolite as substrate was carried out. Synthetic turbid water samples with a turbidity range of 33–67 NTU were prepared and treated with these bases impregnated with MOCP. Values of different water quality parameters such as turbidity, total suspended solids (TSS), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), and microbial count (MC) were obtained before and after the water treatment and analyzed. The result obtained showed that a maximum of 61.6% MOCP can be attached to zeolite by using 12.2 g/50 ml MOCP, with a mixing time of 18.5 min at a temperature of 41.3 °C. These results show that effective water treatment (97.43% turbidity reduction at 40 NTU, pH 8, and 40 °C) can be achieved with zeolite-impregnated MOCP.