Seeds from Moringa oleifera Can Be Used for Water Treatment

Filed in archive Energy, Environment and Ecology , Food and Agriculture on February 21, 2010

© treesftf

Moringa oleifera is a vegetable crop cultivated in many Africa, Central and South America, the Indian subcontinent, and South East Asia. In a new study, it appears that this plant is not only useful as a food source, but extracts from its seeds can also be used as a http://www.uu.se/news/news_item.php?typ=pm&id=935">flocculant in a form of low-cost water treatment.

An indigenous water treatment method uses Moringa oleifera seeds in the form of a water-soluble extract in suspension, resulting in an effective natural clarification agent for highly turbid and untreated pathogenic surface water. Efficient reduction (80.0% to 99.5%) of high turbidity produces an aesthetically clear supernatant, concurrently accompanied by 90.00% to 99.99% (1 to 4 log) bacterial reduction. Application of this low-cost Moringa oleifera protocol is recommended for simplified, point-of-use, low-risk water treatment where rural and peri-urban people living in extreme poverty are presently drinking highly turbid and microbiologically contaminated water.

The procedure is obviously not a total solution to the threat of waterborne disease, but a 90.00% to 99.99% bacterial reduction is already a big step, especially in the developing world where billions still rely on untreated surface water sources for their daily water needs. The article describing the step by step extraction and treatment procedure is free to download.