Environmental Management (2021) 67:489–497

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-020-01407-0

Application of Response Surface Methodology For Modeling and

Optimization of A Bio Coagulation Process (Sewage Wastewater
Treatment Plant)
1
Asma Ayat ●
Sihem Arris1 Amina Abbaz1 Mossaab Bencheikh-Lehocine1 Abdeslam Hassen Meniai1
● ● ●

Received: 18 May 2020 / Accepted: 30 November 2020 / Published online: 12 January 2021
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC part of Springer Nature 2021

Abstract
Cactus has shown great capabilities as a bio coagulant/flocculent in the treatment of wastewater and as a factor for
sustainable development of the environment, due to its abundance and non-toxicity for human health. This has encouraged
the present study based on the design of experiments to optimize the two operating factors: the bio coagulant dosage and
initial pH. The effect of these considered factors on turbidity and chemical oxygen demand (COD) reduction performances
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was investigated to treat sewage wastewater from plants by the coagulation/flocculation process using the response surface
methodology (RSM) based on a central composite faced design (CCFD). The effect of the pH on the supernatant turbidity
removal and the COD reduction was very significant whereas that of the coagulant dosage was insignificant on the COD
removal efficiency. Experimental results revealed that the maximum reduction of turbidity and COD could be reached at a
coagulant dosage of 28 mg/l and a pH of 12. At these optimal conditions, the removal efficiency of turbidity and COD was
98.33% and 96.55% respectively. By the end of the treatment, final values of 0.84 NTU and 20.8 mg/l were obtained for
turbidity and COD, respectively. A notable decrease of orthophosphate (O- PO4−2), nitrite (N-NO3−), ammonium (N-NH4+)
and suspended matter (SM) was observed. The study also showed that the quadratic regression model could be used as a
theoretical basis for the process based on a high coefficient of determination R2 value > 0.96, obtained from the analysis of
variances (ANOVA).
Keywords Wastewater Bio coagulant Sustainable development Response Analysis of variance
● ● ● ●

Introduction
Public health, protection of the environment, and socio-
economic interests are the ultimate goals in industrial was-
tewater management (Mahrouz et al. 2016). Continuous
population growth, increased economic activity and indus-
trial development, on the one hand, and water exploitation
and poor management, on the other, have caused degradation
Supplementary information The online version of this article (https://
doi.org/10.1007/s00267-020-01407-0) contains supplementary
material, which is available to authorized users.
* Asma Ayat
ayat_asma@hotmail.fr
1 range of applications in treatment technology. Coagulation/
Faculty of Process Engineering, Environmental Process
Engineering Laboratory (LIPE), Salah Boubnider University
Constantine 3, Constantine, Algeria
of ecosystems and water resources all over the world (Choi
et al. 2008; Uğurlu et al. 2008; Zheng et al. 2009; Thee-
pharaksapan et al. 2011).
Palatable clean drinking water is becoming scare, and the
cost of water treatment is increasing (Varsha and Jay 2012;
Nharingo et al. 2015). In recent years, water treatment has
become the focus of considerable research attention and a
pronounced challenge to society. This has encouraged
numerous researchers to test new methods for water treat-
ment including affordable, eco-friendly, and more effective
processes (Alila and Boufi 2009; Antov et al. 2012).
Several wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) use the
coagulation/flocculation process to limit the release of cer-
tain pollutants to the receiving water course. The coagula-
tion/flocculation process is an essential and critical step in
both drinking water and wastewater treatment with a large
flocculation process enables the removal of colloids and
particles. It also enables the removal of colloids and
490
particles, and eliminates all bacteria and a part of viruses as
well (Miller et al. 2008; Nharingo et al. 2015).
As typical chemical coagulants, hydrolyzing metal salts
based on aluminum or iron are widely used. Colloidal may
be subject to an instability caused by aluminum or iron
salts, which lead the small particulates to form large
aggregates, which will be removed by sedimentation and
filtration to purify water and wastewater (Jiang and Lioyd
2002; Duan and Gregory 2003). Inorganic coagulants that
are extensively used may have the following disadvantages:
they require large dosage, low effect and they are noxious to
humans. Likewise, synthetic organic coagulants are toxic,
have a high cost and require corrosion-resistant storage and
feed equipment, limiting their application (Lu 2002).
In recent years, the wastewater treatment research has
focused on the use of biomaterials to deal with various
pollutants including heavy metallic ions pollutants, dyes,
phosphates, nitrates, chlorides, phenolic compounds, pesti-
cides, detergents and particulates, among others. This has
led to the identification of natural and environmentally
benign agents that purify water through the coagulation/
flocculation process (Li et al. 2009). Biomaterials are
rapidly gaining interest due to their inherently renewable
character, low toxicity, lower sludge volume compared to
alum, inessential requirement for pH adjustment, biode-
gradability, low commercial cost, relative abundance, high
treatment efficiency, harmlessness to humans, unfound
contamination by-product released into treated water, and
overall smaller environmental impact compared to inor-
ganic and synthetic polymers (Sharma et al. 2006).
In this context, the use of plant-based coagulants for water
treatment represents a more sustainable development strategy
of the environment. Cactus (opuntia ficus indica), commonly
called ‘nopal’ in Mexico, prickly pear or cactus leaf in USA
(Nharingo et al. 2015), has long been associated with its
medicinal proprieties and has been regarded as a dietary food
source, and it can be propagated in most parts of the world. It
has been used as a bio sorbent (Mane et al. 2011; Bouatay and
Mhenni 2014), and its high coagulation capability has been
proven in terms of its potential for the elimination of heavy
metals, dyes, organic materials, and bacteria (Vijayaraghavan
et al. 2011). The presence of the mucilage stored in cactus
inner pads, which is a viscous complex carbohydrate, is
attributed to the high coagulation capability and to its effi-
ciency for wastewater treatment (Yin 2010).
The significant parameters optimization in the coagula-
tion/flocculation process through the classical method relies
on varying a single factor while keeping the remaining
factors constant at specific set of conditions.
This is extremely time-consuming (it requires many
experimental runs), expensive, and is unlikely to reach the true
optimum value due to the negligence of interactions between
variables (Adinarayana et al. 2003; Ahmad et al. 2007). These
Environmental Management (2021) 67:489–497
limitations of the conventional method can be overcome by
applying statistical experimental design techniques using the
RSM. This method has been successfully applied in various
scientific and technical fields such as applied chemistry and
physics, biochemistry and biology, chemical engineering,
environmental protection, membrane science, and technology
(Khayet et al. 2011).
The main objectives of using RSM is to develop models,
improve process optimization and evaluate the relative
significance of several influential factors even in the pre-
sence of complex interactions. RSM uses an experimental
design such as the CCFD to fit a model by least squares
techniques. The adequacy of the proposed model is then
assessed using the diagnostic checking tests provided by the
analysis of variance (ANOVA) (Montgomery 2001).
Likewise, another objective is to treat sewage wastewater
from plants using the bio coagulation/flocculation process,
modeling and optimizing the key operating parameters of
this bio process using RSM based on CCFD. Two inde-
pendent factors were investigated in this study: cactus
powder dosage and pH which might decrease supernatant
turbidity, and COD.
Material and Methods
Wastewater Sampling
The wastewater samples used in this study were collected from
Ferdjioua WWTP, located in the municipality of Mila,
Algeria. The WWTP is intended to operate at a capacity of
9600 m³/day. It was designed in 2013 to receive municipal
wastewater in order to protect “Beni Haroun” dam. This
WWTP is established to face various forms of water-borne
diseases and to contribute to the irrigation of agricultural lands.
A sampling from the wastewater was carried out on 08/
03/2019 followed by temperature and pH measurements of
the samples, which were immediately delivered to the
laboratory and kept at 5 °C without adding any chemicals.
The averages of the physical and chemical characteristics of
wastewater samples are shown in Table 1.
Bio Coagulant Preparation
In this study, cactus (powder) was used as a natural coagulant/
flocculent. The cactus pads were collected from a wild
plantation near Constantine, Algeria and were washed with
distilled water to remove dust, impurities and all thorns.
The biomaterial was cut into small pieces, dried at 45 °C
for 48 h and then crushed using a domestic grinder. Finally,
it was sieved to obtain solids with the diameter of 63 μm in
diameter. The solids were used as a raw coagulant to treat
wastewater without any chemical pre-treatment.
Environmental Management (2021) 67:489–497 491

Table 1 Characteristics of investigated wastewater samples Table 2 Experimental range and levels of independent variables
Parameters Units Average values Variables Range and level

pH / 7.6 −1 0 +1
Turbidity NTU 50 A: coagulant dose (mg/L) 10 25 40
Temperature °C 14.7 B: (pH) 2 7 12
Conductivity μs/cm 1961
Dissolved oxygen mg/L 9.17
Ortho Phosphate (PO4-2) mg/L 0.626
nitrate (N-NO3-) mg/L 0.91 SM. They were determined in laboratory according to the
Suspended matter mg/L 338 methods given in the series of standard methods for the
Ammonium (N-NH4+) mg/L 2.7 examination of water and wastewater (APHA 2003).
Chemical oxygen demand (COD) mg/L(O2) 602.88
Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) mg/L(O2) 100 Experimental Design and Data Analysis

The influence of the bio-coagulant dose (A) and the initial

Experimental Procedure
At the start of the experiment, the contents of the tank
were mixed to a uniform initial turbidity, temperature, and
pH values. All the experiments were carried out at a room
temperature of 17 ± 1 °C. The conventional jar-test tech-
nique was used. A six-beaker jar-test apparatus (wise stir,
JTM6C Model) was used to simulate the coagulation/
flocculation process. Each beaker contained 500 ml of
wastewater samples and was stirred at 160 rpm for 5 min
and the bio coagulant was added into the samples at the
beginning of experiment. The samples, then, were further
stirred at 40 rpm for 25 min and the formed flocs were
allowed to settle for 30 min. After settling, the supernatant
turbidity was determined by a HANNA turbidimeter
(HI88713) and COD was determined according to the
standard method (APHA 2003).
The COD removal efficiency (COD %) and turbidity
removal efficiency (TUR %) were calculated using Eqs.1
and 2, respectively.
COD0  COD
CODð%Þ ¼  100:
COD0
TURo  TUR
TURð%Þ ¼  100:
TURo
COD0 and COD represent the initial and final COD (mg/L)
of wastewater, respectively and, similarly, TUR0 and TUR
represent the initial and final supernatant turbidity of
wastewater.
The pHs of the samples were adjusted within the range of
2–12 using 0.1 M HCl and 0.1 M NaOH solutions and
measured with JENWAY 3505 pH meter.
The examined physico-chemical analyses of water as a part
of this study were: COD, BOD5, PO−4, N-NO3−, N-NH4+,
pH of solution (B) on the turbidity removal and the COD
reduction efficiencies were considered. However, ortho-
phosphates were not chosen as a third response due to low
concentration in the raw water.
In order to determine the most critical factors and their
region of interest, a preliminary study on the effect of bio
coagulant dosage, pH, mixing speed, and retention time on
coagulation flocculation process was carried out. The ranges
and levels of the bio-coagulant dose and of the initial pH of
solution are presented in Table 2:
As shown in Fig. 1, the CCFD consists of 13 experi-
ments with 2² full factorial design points (4 cubic points), 4
axial points, and 5 central points for replication and all the
experiments were conducted in triplicate for each test. The
experimental design matrix is summarized in Table 3.
In this work experimental data were evaluated using
Minitab17. ANOVA was used to provide the diagnostic
check test to reveal the adequacy of the proposed model.
This analysis was performed by means of Fisher’s test and p
value (probability).
Three and two dimensional contour plots were used to
illustrate the interactive effects of the independent variables
ð1Þ on the dependent ones. 3D plots were drawn using
MATLAB 7.9.0 (R2009b). For statistical calculations, the
variables Xi were coded as xi according to the Eq. 3:
ð2Þ
Xi  X0
Xi ¼ ; ð3Þ
δX
Where Xi is the uncoded value of the independent variable,
x0 the value at the center point of the investigated area and
δx is the step change.
Mathematical model should be of a second-order poly-
nomial equation (Eq. 4) which correlates the dependent and
independent variables.
Xk Xk Xk Xk
Ym ¼ b0 þ bi Xi þ bij Xi Xj þ bij Xi2 þ ε; ð4Þ
i¼1 i¼1 j¼1 i¼1
492 Environmental Management (2021) 67:489–497

Where Ym is the response variable to be modeled, Xi and Xj
the independent variables which influence Ym, b0, bi, bii and
bij are the offset terms, the ith linear coefficient, the quadratic
coefficient and ijth interaction coefficient, respectively.
experimental design matrix along with observed and pre-
dicted turbidity removal and COD removal efficiencies in
coded values.
Statistical Analysis of Turbidity Removal

Results and Discussion
Statistical Analysis and Modeling
Experiments according to the CCFD were carried out in the
laboratory for different combinations of the parameters and
the obtained results are presented in Table 3, which shows
Fig. 1 Study domain in coded values
The effects and interaction diagrams of bio coagulant
dosage and pH on turbidity reduction are shown in Fig. 2
and the main effects plot was used to examine differences
between level means for one or more factors (Fig. 2a).
There is a main effect when different levels of a factor affect
the response dissimilarly. A main effects plot shows the
mean response for each factor level connected by a line.
The Figure shows clearly that the bio coagulant dosage
and the pH influenced the process of coagulation and had a
very significant effect. While the interaction had no effect
on the removal performance of suspended solids, the
interaction between factors occurred when the change in
response from the low level to the high level of one factor
was different from the change in response at the same two
levels of a second factor. From the graph of Fig. 2b, no
significant interaction between all factors could be noted
(the interaction curves were almost parallel). It was
observed that the cactus powder could generate higher
turbidity elimination at high initial pH values and the
maximum removal was obtained when the initial pH of the
solution was 12.
Based on results presented in Table 3, the RSM was
applied to develop a regression polynomial equation which
provided a relationship between the output (the responses)
and the input (independent factors). By means of a regres-
sion, the turbidity removal (%) was expressed in terms of
coded values of bio coagulant dosage (A) and pH (B) by the

Table 3 CCFD matrix for turbidity removal and COD removal efficiencies
Run Coagulant dosage(A) pH (B) Turbidity removal (%) COD removal (%)
Experimental values Predicted values Experimental values Predicted values

1 −1 −1 36.5 35.42 18.50 19.36

2 +1 −1 45.00 42.64 21.50 21.92
3 −1 +1 90.27 89.66 78.00 72.32
4 +1 +1 97.64 95.74 95.20 89.09
5 −1 0 76.11 77.79 49.50 54.31
6 +1 0 80.20 84.45 58.30 63.97
7 0 −1 41.50 44.93 38.00 36.71
8 0 +1 96.11 98.61 85.00 96.77
9 0 0 88.20 87.03 77.25 75.21
10 0 0 87.60 87.03 77.63 75.21
11 0 0 88.10 87.03 77.02 75.21
12 0 0 88.20 87.03 77.16 75.21
13 0 0 89.00 87.03 77.50 75.21
Environmental Management (2021) 67:489–497
Fig. 2 Main effect of bio coagulant dose and initial pH (a) and
interaction (b) plots for turbidity removal efficiency
following model:
TURð%Þ ¼ 87:03 þ 3:32  A þ 26:83  B  5:91  A2
 15:25  B2  0:28  A  B:
ð5Þ
To determine the significance of the regression coefficient
of the factors, the Student’s test (t test) was used and an
experimental significance level that was calculated from the
Student’s coefficient (t). To check and confirm the
493
significance of each coefficient, it is recommended to use
p values or t-test as a tool in order to understand the mutual
interaction motif among the factors. (Alinsafi et al. 2005;
Rabahi et al. 2018). The regression coefficient values, stan-
dard errors, t-statistics, and significance level p values of
removal turbidity efficiency are shown in Online Resource 1.
From the results presented in Online Resource 1, it can be
deduced that bio coagulant dosage (A) and initial pH (B) had
p values equal to 0.025 and 0.000 respectively indicating that
the terms in the model were significant with 95% confidence
level. Furthermore, concerning quadratic terms effect, it can
be observed that they were significant A2 (P value 0.011) and
B2 (P value 0.000). Nevertheless, bio coagulant dosage (A)
with pH (B) had no significant effect on coagulation floccu-
lation process using cactus powder since its p value was equal
to 0.850 by far much higher than 0.05.
In order to evaluate the adjustment quality and to
examine the efficiency and the statistical significance of the
model, statistical testing of the model was performed with
Fisher’s test for ANOVA. The model was suitable and was
a good predictor of the experimental results when the F
value is greater than the tabulated value of F-distribution for
a certain freedom degrees number in the model at a level of
significance α (Elibol 2002).
The table in Online Resource 2 shows the results pro-
vided by ANOVA for the first studied response (Turbidity
removal efficiency).
F is equal to 132.72 (with p value < 0.001), which is
greater than Fcrit (5, 7) = 3.97 at the 95% confidence level,
showing correlation significance between the model vari-
ables (bio coagulant dosage and initial pH) and the response
(turbidity removal efficiency) of the process.
The value of the correlation coefficient (R2 = 0.989) is
close to 1, which is desirable and shows a satisfactory fit of
the quadratic model to the experimental data. It confirms the
accuracy of the model, indicating that only 1.1% of the total
of the variation could not be explained by the empirical
model. A reasonable agreement with adjusted R2 (R2adj =
0.982%) is necessary. When R2 and adjusted R2 are dif-
ferent, there is a chance that insignificant terms were
included in the model.
By applying a diagnostic graph, such as the one of pre-
dicted vs. actual values of turbidity reduction efficiency in Fig.
3, the data points are closely spread around the first bisector
and indicate a good agreement between experimental and
predicted values of turbidity removal. The coefficient R2
confirms an acceptable fitting of the second-order equation.
Statistical Analysis of COD Removal
As it appears in the diagrams represented in Online
Resource 3, the effectiveness of the bio coagulant in
removing COD was highly dependent on initial pH. In other
494 Environmental Management (2021) 67:489–497

100 100

90 90

80 80
P re d i c te d tu rb i d i ty re m o v a l e ffi c i e n c y (% )

P r e d i c te d C O D r e m o v a l e ffi c i e n c y (% )
70 70

60
60

50
50

40
40

30
30

20
20

10
10

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0
Experimental turbidity removal efficiency (%) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Experimental COD removal efficiency (%)
Fig. 3 Predicted values vs. experimental values for turbidity elimina-
tion efficiency Fig. 4 Predicted values vs. experimental values for COD removal
efficiency

words, the COD removal efficiency decreased with the

decrease of the initial pH and reached 86.06% at pH 12. It is Process Analysis
clearly shown that the interaction had a weak effect.
The results shown in Online Resource 4 led to the fol- Getting the optimal operating conditions for the turbidity
lowing regression model giving the COD reduction effi- and COD removal from wastewater plant by bio coagula-
ciency (Eq. 6): tion process was the main objective of the optimization
process of this study.
CODð%Þ ¼ 75:21 þ 4:83  A þ 30:03  B  16:07  A2 The surface plots determined by regression models
 8:47  B2 þ 3:55  A  B: equations of the turbidity elimination and COD removal
ð6Þ efficiencies with the independent variables are shown in
Fig. 5a,b with the corresponding contour plots shown in
According to t-test shown in Online Resource 5, the Online Resource 6.
coefficients of the terms: b0, b2 and b11 have values of The response graphs show a clear curve, which implies
p value < 0.05 indicating meaningful corresponding that the optimal conditions for obtaining maximum
terms, while the terms: b1, b22 and b12 have values of response values are attributed to the pH and dosage coa-
p > 0.05. They, therefore, can be removed from the gulant in the design space. As illustrated in the contours
quadratic model. plots in Online Resource 6, it is shown that turbidity
The value of R2 = 0.96 indicates that just 4% of the removal and COD reduction increase as we move from the
total variation could not be explained by the empirical bottom toward the top of the plots.
model. Also, another validation criterion of the model is The pH and the bio-coagulant dosage play an important
the value of Fobs = 33.99 which is greater than the Fcrit role in the coagulation/flocculation process. From 3D plots
value (3.97). in Fig. 5a, b, it can be observed that the removal of turbidity
The predicted results vs. the experimental values for and COD decreased with the additional increase in bio
COD removal are shown in Fig. 4 and it can be seen that the coagulant dosage and decrease in pH.
representing points are close to the bisector indicating a As displayed in additional data in Online Resource 6, the
good accuracy of the obtained model. maximum percentage of turbidity removal using cactus
It should be mentioned that the bio coagulant dose had powder was over 90% and reached, at cactus doses between
no effect on the yield of COD reduction from a statistical [15 and 30] mg/L, a pH between 8 and 12. Simultaneously,
point of view, but the addition of coagulant played a very the elimination of the COD reached a yield that exceeded
important role in the process of coagulation flocculation. 80% in the interval [17.5–35] mg/L of bio coagulant dosage
Environmental Management (2021) 67:489–497
Fig. 5 3D surface graphs for turbidity removal efficiency (a) and COD
removal efficiency (b)
and a pH between 9 and 12. It was noted that the effect of
the initial pH upon the output responses was the most
important.
The Optimal Values
Upon optimization, a unique solution was found bycarrying
out Response Optimizer multi objectives to ensure the
495
Fig. 6 Overlay contour plots of COD and turbidity removal
efficiencies
maximum turbidity elimination and COD removal effi-
ciencies. As seen in the data presented in Online Resource
7, the optimum conditions obtained were bio coagulant
dose = 28.78 mg/L and pH = 12 to achieve predicted values
of 99% and 97.87% for turbidity and COD elimination
efficiencies, respectively.
Desirability ranges between one, for the ideal case, and
zero when responses are outside their acceptable limits. The
individual desirability of both turbidity and COD of these
two variables is 1. Figure 6 shows that the optimum con-
ditions of turbidity and COD responses can be also identi-
fied by superimposing their contours. The optimum area is
clearly observed in the blank.
To confirm the validity of the statistical experimental
strategies, additional runs choosing optimal conditions were
carried out. Table 4 shows predicted and measured values
using optimum conditions for turbidity elimination and
COD reduction efficiencies. The estimated errors for tur-
bidity elimination efficiency and COD removal efficiency
were acceptable.
Control of the Other Pollution Parameters
In order to assess the impact of the bio coagulant use, it was
judicious to examine the quality of the treated water, after
having had obtained the optimal conditions for the elim-
ination of turbidity and COD and confirmed the predicted
values of the two responses considered. The optimal values
(dose of bio coagulant = 28.8 mg/L and pH = 12) were
used to test the ability of the bio coagulant to eliminate
other pollution parameters such as phosphate, nitrates,
ammonium, and suspended solids. Figure 7 shows a sig-
nificant decline of the pollution parameters using the cactus
powder in the coagulation/flocculation process: a reduction
496
Table 4 Confirmation
pH
experiments for optimum region
TUR (%) 12
COD (%)
Fig. 7 Percentage elimination of pollution parameters
yield of the orthophosphate (PO4−2) that exceeded 80% to
reach a final value of 0.123 mg/L. Elimination of SM was
>95% with only 16 mg/L remaining. The nitrites (N-NO3−)
were reduced to 0.310 mg/L (more than 65% of elimination
efficiency) while only traces of ammonium (N-NH4+)
remained at 0.007 mg/L (more than 99%). In conclusion,
the cactus powder can replace conventional coagulants that
generate toxic products.
Conclusion
In this work, cactus powder as a biomaterial proved its
capacity to retain suspended solids and COD through the
coagulation/flocculation process of the wastewater plant
treatment. RSM using CCFD was used to examine the
effect of bio coagulant dosage and pH for the maximum
turbidity removal (98.33%) and COD reduction (96.55%).
Optimal conditions of coagulant dosage 28.78 mg/L and pH
12 were obtained from the compromise of the two desirable
responses (TUR% and COD%). A considerable decrease of
the pollution parameters (O- PO4−2, N-NO3−, N-NH4+ and
SM) was marked.
Coagulant dosage and initial pH were both significant
terms for higher turbidity elimination, whereas coagulant
dosage was not an important factor that influenced COD
removal efficiency. The interaction effect between coagu-
lant dosage and pH was negligible. ANOVA showed high
R2 values of the regressions models equations R2 = 0.989
(TUR%) and R2 = 0.960 (COD%), thus ensuring a statis-
tical adjustment of the second-order regression model with
the experimental data.
Environmental Management (2021) 67:489–497
Dose (mg/L) Predicted values Experimental values Error
28.78 99.00 98.33 0.67
97.87 96.55 1.32
Further experiments demonstrated that a combination of
the RSM and CCFD was an effective and powerful
approach for the optimization of the coagulation/floccula-
tion process for wastewater plant treatment using cactus
powder as a biodegradable coagulant.
The efficiency of the coagulation/flocculation process
with cactus powder is mentioned in the scientific literature
and confirmed by the present experiments. Literature claims
that biomaterials require no pH adjustment but the present
research adds an important piece of information on the
application of cactus as a bio coagulant: it has a strong
coagulating/flocculating activity in wide range of pH [4-10]
with low dosage requirement (interactivity between the pH
and cactus dose. Moreover, this simple bio process removed
more than 65% of the pollution parameters once applied to a
wastewater effluent. Such efficiency advantageously places
this technology among the possible solutions to the pro-
blems associated with the environmental performance of
WWTPs. Similarly, the mathematical models obtained in
this study will be used as correlations to facilitate the
application of the process in the WWTP.
Acknowledgements We would like to express our utmost gratitude to
the laboratory staff members of municipal wastewater treatment plant
of Ferjioua (Ain bidha Ahrich) for their great help and for granting us
permission to collect samples with continuous cooperation; likewise,
our sincere thanks and appreciation are extended to the engineers of
the LIPE laboratory, Environmental Process Engineering Laboratory,
of Salah Boubnider University Constantine 3.
Funding Environmental Process Engineering Laboratory (LIPE).
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of
interest.
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to
jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
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