Coagulation Performance Evaluation of Natural and Synthetic Coagulants for the Treatment of Sugar Wash

Distillery spent wash is the residual liquid waste generated during the production of alcohol. The pollution caused from it is one of the most critical environmental problems. The distillery spent wash poses a serious threat to the water quality in several regions in and around the environment due to its characteristics such as high organic load, dark brown color, unpleasant odor, a high temperature, low pH, and high percentage of dissolved organic and inorganic matters which may be present as reducing sugars. The removal of organic compounds along with the color from distillery effluent is a challenging criterion to the sugar industries. The characterization of various physicochemical aspects of spent wash leads to the innovation of sugar wash, the dilution of the spent wash with sugar effluent. An attempt has been made to treat this industrial effluent with coagulating agents, chemical calcium hypochlorite, and alum and natural coagulant, Moringa oleifera L. seed powder for the reduction of the pollutant. Combined chemical and natural coagulant was found to be effective in sugar wash treatment with 82% of TDS and 84% of COD removal. Thus, the present investigation states that the distillery industrial effluent spent wash could be diluted with the sugar effluent to narrow down the pollutant load to 20% and also to avoid the use of water to dilute the effluent. Alum, the most widely used chemical coagulant was reported to produce Alzheimer’s disease. Hence, M. oleifera L. seed was substituted for the treatment along with the cost-effective chemical calcium hypochlorite. The combined CaOCl2 + Moringa seed (2.75 g + 5 g) treatment produced the best pollutant removal effect.