New Approach to Remove Heavy Metals from Wastewater by the Coagulation of Alginate-Rhamnolipid Solution with Aluminum Sulfate

Abstract

This study was conducted using alginate-rhamnolipid (Alg-Rh) solutions on copper ions (Cu2+) as an application of coagulation with aluminum sulfate (Al-2(SO4)(3)). The results show that solid phases were rapidly formed as an output of the reaction between Alg-Rh and Al-2(SO4)(3). It could be considered that the Al-2(SO4)(3) concentration and the existence of Cu2+ have an impact on forming hard coagulation, in that the total volume has been increased with increasing Al-2(SO4)(3) and the existence of Cu2+. The number of ions of aluminum (Al3+) and sulfate (SO42-) were also increased with Al-2(SO4)(3). The efficiency of Cu2+ removal was constant above 75.0%, hence the average value was 76.8%.