USING MORINGA OLEIFERA SEEDS AS AN ENVIRONMENTAL FRIENDLY COAGULANT ZALINA OTHMAN*

Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) treatment is an important issue for the minimization of pollution. POME is a highly polluting effluent containing various forms of organics and inorganic suspended solids. The coagulation- flocculation process using Moringa oleifera seeds after oil extraction (MOAE) as a natural coagulant presents a viable alternative for the treatment of POME. A series of jar tests were conducted to determine the parameters involved during coagulation-flocculation process. The influence of the different operating parameters over the sediment volumetric percentage, settling velocity, sludge volume index and residual conductivity of the POME treated supernatant to achieve good settleability parameters in the physicochemical treatment of POME wastewater were studied. The operating parameters were the effect of stirring speed, mixing time, pH, MOAE dosage and temperature. The pretreatment using MOAE with NALCO 7751 flocculant resulted in 99.2 % suspended solids removal and 52.5 % COD reduction