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Sewage Sludge Conditioning using Opuntia Ficus Indica Juice

Article  in  Revue Des Sciences De L'Eau · August 2015

DOI: 10.7202/1030009ar

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 Ecological Engineering 70 (2014) 465–469

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Ecological Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecoleng

Conditioning of sewage sludge by prickly pear cactus (Opuntia ficus

Indica) juice
H. Betatache a , A. Aouabed a , N. Drouiche b,c,∗ , H. Lounici c,d
a
Laboratoire d’Analyses Fonctionnelles des procédés chimiques, Université Saad Dahlab de Blida, Algeria
b
Centre de Recherche en Technologie des Semi-conducteurs pour l’Energétique (CRTSE), 2, Bd Dr. Frantz Fanon P.O Box 140, 7 merveilles, Alger, 16038,
Algeria
c
URIE, Ecole Nationale Polytechnique, B.P. 182-16200, El Harrach, Algiers, Algeria
d
Université Bouira, Pole technologique 10000, Bouira-Algeria

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The possibility of using a plant material, prickly pear cactus, Opuntia ficus Indica, juice (OFIJ), for condi-
Received 7 April 2014 tioning the Beni-messous wastewater treatment plant sludge was examined. Optimum dosage of OFIJ
Received in revised form 4 May 2014 was found to be 0.4 g kg−1 of dry matter. The residual turbidity, the dryness of filtration cake and the
Accepted 23 June 2014
specific resistance of filtration were found to be 2.5 NTU, 24% and 0.13 × 1012 m kg−1 respectively. The
results obtained with OFIJ were compared to those obtained with polyelectrolytes: Chimfloc C4346, a
Keywords:
cationic polymer, Sedipur NF 102, a non-ionic polymer and Sedipu AF 400, an anionic polymer, and inor-
Coagulation
ganic conditioners, FeCl3 and Al2 (SO4 )3 . The optimum dosages of those conditioners were found to be
Filtration
Opuntia ficus Indica
0.4 g kg−1 for OFIJ, 0.8 g kg−1 for Chimfloc C4346, 80 g kg−1 for FeCl3 and 60 g kg−1 for Al2 (SO4 )3 .
Sludge © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Conditioning
Characterization

1. Introduction
The treatment of wastewaters during these last years became a
considerable challenge for the current societies. This activity devel-
ops another problem: the management of the sewage sludge.
The sludge ripped off from clarifiers sustains two successive
operations of concentration: the thickening and dehydration. As
it stands, the sludge can be hardly concentrated and must be con-
ditioned to improve its treatment.
The conditioning of the sludge is usually done with mineral
salts, synthetic polymers or with the combination of the two. How-
ever, despite their proven effectiveness (Akhtar et al., 2004; Qi
et al., 2011), the chemical conditioning has some disadvantages for
human health and the ecosystems (Lu, 2002; Bolto and Gregory,
2007) to solve this problem, these last few years another kind of
natural reagent have view the day, they have the advantage of
∗ Corresponding author at: Technology of Semi-conductor for the Energetic
Research Center, Department of Environmental Engineering, 2, Bd Frantz Fanon
BP140 Alger-7-merveilles, Algiers, Algeria. Tel.: +213 21 279880x192;
fax: +213 21 433511.
E-mail addresses: nadjibdrouiche@yahoo.fr, drouichenadjib@crtse.dz
(N. Drouiche).
being biodegradable and without risk to public health. In the lit-
erature a number of coagulant–flocculants of vegetable, animal
or micro-organism sources used in the treatment of natural and
waste waters exist. Among these natural coagulants, the Moringa
oleifera certainly is the most studied by the scientific community
since these coagulant properties have been recognized (Yin, 2010).
Since 1999, the coagulation ability of the cactus is highlighted (Diaz
et al., 1999), and the different species of Opuntia, reserved to Habit
in human food, fodder, medicine and cosmetics (Saenz et al., 2004;
Miller et al., 2008) have aroused the interest of researchers in the
field of the water treatments. Jing Dong Zhang et al. (Zhang et al.,
2006) have seen the turbidity of the water decreased from 104 NTU
to less than 5 NTU using powder of Opuntia ficus Indica. Abid et al.
(Abid et al., 2009) have used the juice of cactus of this same species
to eliminate heavy metals in industrial effluents, and the rate of
reduction of chromium (VI) has exceeded 99.5% while the turbid-
ity has decreased from 100 NTU to 2 NTU. Barka et al. (2013) have
used the cladodes of the cactus Opuntia ficus Indica as biosorbant
to eliminate the methylene blue from the waters. The chitosan and
the xanthan are the only animal materials studied for the water
treatments (Kadouche et al., 2012a, 2012b; Zemmouri et al., 2012).
The cactus Opuntia ficus Indica is native of South America, but
it is also found in the arid and semi-arid regions in Africa and
Australia as well as in the south of Europe and Asia. The family of

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2014.06.031
0925-8574/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
466 H. Betatache et al. / Ecological Engineering 70 (2014) 465–469

Fig. 1. FTIR spectra of dried Opuntia ficus Indica’s juice.

cactaces is known for its production of the mucilage. The mucilage
is composed mainly of acid galacturonic and different quantities of
l-arabinose, d-galactose, l-rhamnose, and d-xylose (Trachtenberg
and Mayer, 1980) in addition to the dietary fiber and other mineral
elements such as the Ca2+ and K+ whose presence is necessary for
the gelatinous properties of mucilage (Sepulveda et al., 2007). The
extraction of the mucilage of cactus is done by mixture of water and
different organic solvents such as ethanol, acetone, and methanol.
In this work, the juice of cactus Opuntia ficus Indica, widely avail-
able on the Algerian territory, has been extracted, characterized
and then used in the conditioning of sludge. Its coagulant perform-
ances were compared to those of cationic, anionic and non-ionic
polymers, aluminum sulfate and ferric chloride. The sludge condi-
tioning was followed by dehydration and the following parameters:
the specific resistance to filtration (RSF), the turbidity and the dry-
ness were studied during a vacuum filtration.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Coagulants
The Opunitia ficus indica used in this study was from Boufarik
in the north of Algeria, and the cladodes were picked in March and
transported immediately to the laboratory to be used for extraction
of juice.
The sludge was also conditioned with three synthetic polymers,
Chimfloc C4346, Sedipur NF 102 and Sedipur AF 400 (cationic, no-
ionic and anionic), from Cosme Company.
2.2. Coagulants preparation
The OFI’s cladodes collected were repeatedly washed with dis-
tilled water to remove dirt particles, cut into small pieces and then
blended in domestic blender. The crushed cladodes were sieved
then in order to obtain the juice which is a green viscous liquid; the
amount of juice was dried at 60 ◦ C for 3 days, and the dried powder
was stored in a glass bottle for further use and analysis. The rest of
the juice was diluted in deionized water to a concentration of 10%.
0.6% (6 g l−1 ) solutions of synthetic polymers and inorganic
chemicals were prepared a day before conducting the experiments.
2.3. Chemical analysis of OFIJ
Various tests were performed on OFIJ in order to determine its
general composition and its potential use as a natural clotting in
sludge conditioning.

Table 1 Table 2
Characteristics of investigated sewage sludge. Characteristics of OFIJ.

Parameter Unit Average value Parameter Unit Average value

pH – 7.16 pH 4.76
Conductivity ms/cm 3.6 pHzpc 4
Temperature 15 Viscosity Pa s 0.029
◦
Turbidity C 30 Dry matter g l−1 28.6
Dry solids NTU 45.46 Organic matter % 98.7
Dryness g l−1 4.62 Mineral matter % 1.3
Organic matter % 53.01 Carbohydrates g l−1 4.109
Mineral matter % 46.98 Galacturonique acid g l−1 11.076
SRF m kg−1 1.03 × 1013 P g l−1 0.013
 H. Betatache et al. / Ecological Engineering 70 (2014) 465–469 467

a 35
chimfloc C4346 sedipurNF400 sedipurAF102 a 23 chimfloc C4346 sedipuAF400 sedipurNF102
22

30 21
20
Residual turbidity (NTU)

25 19
18

Dryness (%)
20 17
16
15 15
14
10 13
12
5 11
10
0 9
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
-1
Polymers doses (g.Kg ) -1
Polymers doses (g.Kg )

b 35
Al2(SO4)3 FeCl3 b 26
30
24
Residual turbidity (NTU)

25

Dryness (%)
22

20
20

15
18

10 16

5 14

0 12
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100
-1
Chemical conditioners doses (g.Kg )
-1 Chemical conditioners doses (g.Kg )

c 26

c 24
30
22
25
Residual turbidity (NTU)

20
Dryness (%)

20 18

16
15
14

10 12

10
5
8
0,0 0,5 1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0
0
0,0 0,5 1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0 OFIJ doses (g.Kg )
-1

-1
OFIJ doses (g.Kg )
Fig. 3. Effect of various doses of (a) polymers and (b) FeCl3 and Al2 (SO4 )3 , (c) OFIJ
Fig. 2. Effect of various doses of (a) polymers, (b) FeCl3 and Al2 (SO4 )3 , and (c) OFIJ on dryness.
on filtrate turbidity.

FTIR spectral analysis was recorded in IRAffinity-1 spectrometer

in the region of 400–4000 cm−1 . The samples were prepared with determined by Dubois method (1956) using d-glucose as standard
the powder of OFIJ and KBr under high pressure. (Dubois et al., 1956). The content of galacturonic acid was deter-
Dry, organic and mineral matters were determined by standard mined by Blumenkrantz and Asboe-Hansen method (1973), using
methods. Photometric methods were used to determine the d-galacturonic acid as standard (Blumenkrantz and Asboe-Hansen,
content of phosphor. The percentage of protein was obtained 1973). pH and conductivity were measured with Hanna multipa-
using the factor 6.25 with nitrogen content. Total sugars were rameters.
468 H. Betatache et al. / Ecological Engineering 70 (2014) 465–469

a 22 (DS), organic matter (OM), mineral matter (MM) and dryness (S)
were determined as reported by Standard Methods (Rodier et al.,
20
2009). pH, conductivity and temperature were measured directly
18 on sludge, and turbidity was measured on filtrate after dewatering
16 process.
SRF.10 (m.kg )

The sludge collected from the WWTP was passed through a

-1

14

12
4.25 mm sieve to remove any gross-sized particles. 500 ml sample
of the sludge was poured into a 1000 ml beaker, and the required
10
12

dosages of conditioners were added. The sludge and conditioner

8
were rapidly mixed using the Jar-test apparatus (Stuart Floculator
6 SW6) at 120 rpm for 20 s, followed by gentle flocculation at 40 rpm
4 for 2 min. To assess coagulation–flocculation effectiveness, a vac-
2 uum filtration was conducted on conditioned sludge at the negative
0
pressure of 0.06 MPa, the measurement set consisting of 7 cm diam-
eter Buchner funnel, membrane of 8 ␮m pore size, vacuum pump,
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
and graduated measuring cylinder where the filtrate is collected.
-1
Polymers doses (g.Kg ) The parameters assessed after the dewatering process were specific
resistance of filtration (SRF), dryness of filtration cake and turbidity
of the filtrate.
b 12
3. Results and discussion
10

3.1. Characterization of OFI’s juice

8
Results of the preliminary analyses are presented in Table 2, and
SRF (m.Kg )
-1

data presented in this table are average of three analyses.

6 From Table 2, we notice that the majority composition of OFIJ is
the organic matter. The principal groups of the above constituents
are proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, lignins and uronic acids. In this
4
study, we have found that the juice contents are 4.109 g l−1 sug-
ars and 11.076 g l−1 galacturonic acid. The remaining part, 1.3% of
2 mineral matter, consists of mineral elements such as phosphorus
0.013 g l−1 . The zero point charge (pHzpc ) of the natural coagulant
was found to be at pH of 4.3. The pHzpc of the biomaterial is one
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 way to understand the coagulation flocculation mechanism. When
-1 the pH of the juice is lower than 4.3, the surface of the dried juice
Chemical conditioners doses (g.Kg )
of cactus gets positively charged, and the surface of the dried juice
of cactus is negatively charged in pH values higher than 4.3.
c 12
3.2. FTIR analysis
10
The FT-IR spectra of dried OFIJ in the range 400–4000 cm−1
8 were taken to obtain information on the nature of functional
groups at the surface of the natural coagulant. The spectra pre-
SRF (m.Kg )
-1

sented in Fig. 1 show broad, strong and superimposed bands around

6
3600–3200 cm−1 which may be due to the over-lapping of O H and
N H stretching vibration. The peak at 1714.95 cm−1 is due to of
4
stretching vibration of C O of carboxyl groups. The peak observed
at 1574.27 cm−1 is due to the NH deformation of amines. The
2 stretching vibration band at 1387.57 cm−1 is due to the asymmet-
ric stretching of the carboxylic COO double bond of deprotonated
0 carboxylate functional groups (Barka et al., 2013). The absorption
peaks around 1231.21 and 1080.74 cm−1 are indicative of P O and
0,0 0,5 1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0
P OH stretching vibrations. The peak at 840.1 cm−1 is attributed
-1
OFIJ doses (g.Kg ) to S O stretching vibration. Peaks in the region of wavenum-
bers lower than 700 cm−1 could be attributed to the halogenated
Fig. 4. Effect of various doses of (a) polymers and (b) FeCl3 and Al2 (SO4 )3 , (c) OFIJ
stretching.
on SRF.

3.3. Sludge characterization

2.4. Sludge simple and conditioning
The stabilized sludge was sampled from Beni-Messous waste-
water treatment plant (WWTP); the site is 15 km on the West of
Algiers. The samples were stored in obscurity at 4 ◦ C. The general
characteristics of the sludge are summarized in Table 1. Dry solids
3.3.1. Turbidity
Fig. 2 shows the results concerning the effect the dose of chim-
floc C4346, sedipur AF102 and sedipur NF400 (ranged from 2 to
30 g kg−1 of dry matter), FeCl3 and Al2 (SO4 )3 (ranged from 10 to
100 g kg−1 ) and OFIJ (ranged from 0.2 to 2.8 g kg−1 of dry matter)
 H. Betatache et al. / Ecological Engineering 70 (2014) 465–469
on turbidity of filtrate after vacuum filtration. From Fig. 1(a) it could
be seen that an increase in chimfloc C4346 and sedipur NF400 con-
centration results to a decreased turbidity. The better final turbidity
occurred when the doses of the two polymers was 8 g kg−1 and
4 g kg−1 respectively for a residual turbidity reaching respectively
1.5 and 3.6 NTU. Above this dosage, the suspensions showed a ten-
dency to re-stabilize. The increasing doses of sedipur AF400 caused
an increasing of turbidity. Fig. 2(b) shows that the better turbidity
removal occurred when the dose of aluminum sulfate and ferric
chloride are respectively 80 and 60 g kg−1 for a residual turbidity
reaching 2.2 and 2.5 NTU. Fig. 2(c) shows the efficiency of turbid-
ity removal by the increasing concentration of OFIJ, the turbidity
decreased strongly at the first add of bio-coagulant followed by a
stationary state a lowest final turbidity was recorded with 2.5 NTU
for all OFIJ doses applied.
3.3.2. Dryness
Fig. 3 shows the variation of dryness of cake formed during the
vacuum filtration; it could be seen that an increase in conditioners
dosages caused the increase in dryness of the filtration cake except
the anionic polymer sedipur AF400, it caused the decrease of dry-
ness. Further for the concentration of 19 g kg−1 of dry matter, the
dryness increased. The conditioning with OFIJ greatly increases the
dryness of the sludge, it reached a maximum of 24% for a dose of
0.8 g kg−1 of OFIJ, from a dose of 1.6 g kg−1 of plant material, the
dryness begins to decrease and the cakes obtained are more moist
and have a viscous appearance; this is due to the increase of OFIJ’s
content which is itself a viscous material.
Results of dryness closely mirror the decrease in residual tur-
bidity. Cationic, non-ionic polymers, inorganic chemicals and OFIJ
occurred in the formation of flocs and elimination of particles which
will be restrained during the filtration process in the cake.
3.3.3. Specific resistance of filtration (SRF)
The specific resistance of filtration is an important parameter to
evaluate the efficiency of conditioner during the filtration process.
The relationship between conditioners dosage and the SRF is shown
in Fig. 4. It could be seen from Fig. 4(a) that the chimfloc C4346
effect on SRF was better than that of sedipur NF102, and the low-
est SRF values reached for the two conditioners are 0.3 × 1012 and
4 × 1012 m kg−1 respectively for a concentration of 6 g kg−1 . From
Fig. 4(b) the SRF value of 1.3 × 1012 m kg−1 for aluminum sulfate
and ferric chloride dosages of 40 and 80 g kg−1 respectively could be
noted. The best reduction of SRF was assigned to the plant material,
and it reached the value of 0.17 × 1012 m kg−1 for a concentration
of 0.4 g kg−1 (Fig. 4(c)).
Addition of coagulants causes the release of bound water to col-
loids; therefore more the concentration of coagulants increased
more the cake obtained after filtration will be dry, consisting,
porous and less resistant to the filtration. However the anionic
polymer sedipur AF400 caused an increase of the RSF due to the
formation of a viscous layer on the filter.
4. Conclusion
The physico-chemical characterization of the fresh sludge of
WWTP has shown that it is of organic nature because it is generated
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469
by the treatment of urban water. The characterization of OFIJ has
shown that it is an organic matter.
This study was conducted to determine the OFIJ’s ability as nat-
ural flocculant for sewage sludge of WWTP. The experiments show
that the juice of cactus has promoted the coagulation floccula-
tion of almost all of the sludge causing separation liquid/solid easy
to using a filtration process without observing the formation of
big flocs. The residual turbidity, the SRF and the dryness obtained
are the same of those obtained using chimfloc C4346 and better
than those obtained with sedipur NF102 sedipur AF400 and inor-
ganic chemicals, but the bio-material has shown efficiency with
more small amount the others conditioners, the optimum dosage
of OFIJ was 0.4 g kg−1 of dry matter. Relying on the previous results,
the OFIJ could be used as a natural conditioner in sewage sludge
treatment.
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