Affiliations 

  • 1 Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 32610, Seri Iskandar, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia
  • 2 Fundamental and Applied Sciences Department, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 32610, Seri Iskandar, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia
  • 3 Cibodas Botanical Gardens, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Cianjur, West Java, Indonesia
  • 4 Institute of Sustainable Energy (ISE), Universiti Tenaga Nasional, 43000, Selangor, Kajang, Malaysia
  • 5 Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering University of Nottingham Malaysia, Jalan Broga, Semenyih Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
  • 6 Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 32610, Seri Iskandar, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia. yeekchia.ho@utp.edu.my
Sci Rep, 2020 03 03;10(1):3959.
PMID: 32127558 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-60119-x

Abstract

The importance of graft copolymerization in the field of polymer science is analogous to the importance of alloying in the field of metals. This is attribute to the ability of the grafting method to regulate the properties of polymer 'tailor-made' according to specific needs. This paper described a novel plant-based coagulant, LE-g-DMC that synthesized through grafting of 2-methacryloyloxyethyl trimethyl ammonium chloride (DMC) onto the backbone of the lentil extract. The grafting process was optimized through the response surface methodology (RSM) using three-level Box-Behnken Design (BBD). Under optimum conditions, a promising grafting percentage of 120% was achieved. Besides, characterization study including SEM, zeta potential, TGA, FTIR and EDX were used to confirm the grafting of the DMC monomer chain onto the backbone of lentil extract. The grafted coagulant, LE-g-DMC outperformed lentil extract and alum in turbidity reduction and effective across a wide range of pH from pH 4 to pH 10. Besides, the use of LE-g-DMC as coagulant produced flocs with excellent settling ability (5.09 mL/g) and produced the least amount of sludge. Therefore, from an application and economic point of views, LE-g-DMC was superior to native lentil extract coagulant and commercial chemical coagulant, alum.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.