Concrete plant wastewater treatment process by coagulation combining aluminum sulfate and Moringa oleifera powder

The high water consumption and large amount of wastewater generated in the concrete industry has received special attention as an environmental issue. When untreated, the concrete wastewater has characteristics that prevent it from being safely disposed or even reused. This paper proposes a complementary treatment for wastewater from a concrete plant, which has a conventional treatment system composed by sedimentation tanks. The proposed process uses Al-2(SO4)(3) and Moringa oleifera (MO) as coagulants. With this combination of coagulants, more than 90% of the turbidity was removed, and a ratio of 20:80 (w/w) was obtained for MO and Al-2(SO4)(3). After treatment, the wastewater was suitable for reuse in washing vehicles or flushing toilets. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.