Abstract:
Drinking water is an inevitable necessity for the existence of the human race on planet earth, but contamination of this water has made it difficult for people to get clean water source for drinking. This has made local dweller or villagers to use alum as coagulant to treat their river water before consumption in communities such as Amassoma in Bayelsa State Nigeria. Alum is known for its high potential health risk even in minute amount in water. This research work looks at the coagulation of Amassoma river water using costus afer juice and its dried peels which are bio-product with no potential health risk in treating Amassoma river water before consumption. The parameters analyzed in the water treatment are Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Turbidity, Electrical conductivity and pH. The experimental was run for four days and the result showed that both the peels and juice of costus afer effectively coagulated the river water. The juice and peels treated water had pH 6.8 and 7.4 on the third and fourth day within World Health Organization (W.H.O) limits. Their turbidity values are also lower than the untreated Amassoma river water. They also had TDS values of 118.47 and 148.16 ppm respectively within W.H.O standard. The turbidity value of the juice treated water is within W.H.O limits while that of the dried peels was slightly above W.H.O standard. Comparing these result with alum treated river water showed that despite the alum treated water having a lower turbidity of 3.02 FTU within W.H.O standard, it had a higher TDS (1528 ppm) and EC (3856 µS) values far above W.H.O limits and pH more acidic and far below W.H.O acceptable standards. This makes costus afer juice and peels better coagulating agent for treating Amassoma river water compared to the alum compounded with its health hazards. Between the costus afer juice and its dried peels, the juice performed better as a coagulating agent for the treatment of Amassoma river water.
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