Spray Dried Powder Biocoagulant From Jatropha Curcas Liquid Extract And Its Preliminary Assessment In Turbidity Removal

Nurhazwani  Ismail; Zurina Zainal  Abidin; Farah Saleena  Talip; Nur Aqilah Muhammad  Fairuz; Mohamednageib Ahmed  Hassan; Robiah  Yunus

doi:10.6180/jase.202603_29(4).0001

Spray Dried Powder Biocoagulant From Jatropha Curcas Liquid Extract And Its Preliminary Assessment In Turbidity Removal

Chemical Engineering Environmental Engineering

Nurhazwani Ismail^1,3, Zurina Zainal Abidin^1,2This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Farah Saleena Talip⁴, Nur Aqilah Muhammad Fairuz¹, Mohamednageib Ahmed Hassan¹, and Robiah Yunus¹

¹Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

²Institute of Tropical Forestry and Forest Products, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

³School of Engineering, Faculty of Innovation & Technology, Taylor’s University, 47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

⁴Department of Food and Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

Received: March 10, 2025
Accepted: June 22, 2025
Publication Date: July 17, 2025

Copyright The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are cited.

Download Citation: ||https://doi.org/10.6180/jase.202603_29(4).0001

This research focuses on converting liquid J. curcas extract into a powder coagulant using spray drying to improve the shelf life. The inlet temperature ( 120−180^◦C ), feed concentration (20−50%) and pump flow rate (600−4600 ml/h) of drying was investigated and Response Surface Methodology was used for optimization, with powder yield, moisture, and protein content as responses. Spray drying optimum conditions were 180^◦C, 50% of feed concentration and 600 ml/h pump flow rate, to give a powder yield of 5.69% with 4.22% and 78.8 mg/l of moisture and protein content respectively. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analysis revealed presence of amino and carboxyl groups in the powder. Agglomerated powder with particle size between 5.62 to 7 µm were seen with presence of carbon, oxygen and nitrogen through FESEM-EDX, which were associated with existing protein in coagulant agent in powder. The spray-dried J. curcas press cake liquid extract powder performance was evaluated in the coagulation process, showing optimal performance at pH 3 with the dose used of 200 mg/l. Comparison of J. curcas press cake liquid extract coagulant with conventional alum resulted in a comparable turbidity removal of 99.47% and 99.33% respectively. The findings proved spray-dried powder effectiveness as coagulant which marked a significant steppingstone for a viable industrial application.

Keywords: Biocoagulant, Jatropha, spray drying, coagulation, water treatment

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