The use of indigenous plant species for drinking water treatment in developing countries: a review. Journal of Biodiversity and Environmental Sciences (JBES), Sept 2014.

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Moa Megersa, Abebe Beyene, Argaw Ambelu, Bizuneh Woldeab. Department of Environmental Health Science and Technology, Jimma University, Jimma, Ethiopia

Although universal access to safe and piped water is an important long-term solution, it is very expensive and challenging to implement in developing countries in the short term. Hence, improving both physicochemical and microbiological quality of drinking water at a household level is believed to be effective in preventing infectious diarrhea. There are a number of household water treatment technologies proven to be effective in coagulation and disinfection. At present, a number of effective coagulants and disinfectants have been identified of plant origin.

Of the large number of plant materials that have been used over the years, the seeds from Moringa oleifera have been shown to be one of the most effective primary coagulants for water treatment, especially in ruralcommunities. In addition, indigenous knowledge indicates that there are several plant species that can be used as a coagulant and disinfectant. Out of which seeds of Prosopis juliflora, Dolichos lablab and leaves of Opuntia ficus indica showed effectiveness in coagulation. Although, plant species have enormous advantage in water treatment, they also have limitation. The major limitation is the release of organic matter and nutrients to apply at large scale. From these review, it can be concluded that plant species have the potential to serve as a complementary water treatment agent especially in rural areas.

Bioremediation of Turbid Surface Water Using Seed Extract from the Moringa oleifera Lam. (Drumstick) Tree. Curr Protoc Microbiol. 2014 May 1;33:1G.2.1-1G.2.8. doi:10.1002/9780471729259.mc01g02s33.

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Lea M. Safe Water International, Carpinteria, California.

An indigenous water treatment method uses Moringa oleifera seeds in the form of a crude 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 water treatment where rural and peri-urban people living in extreme poverty are presently drinking highly turbid and microbiologically contaminated water.

Preliminary Study on Efficacy of Leaves, Seeds and Bark Extracts of Moringa oleifera in Reducing Bacterial load in Water. International Journal of Advanced Research (2013), Volume 1, Issue 4, 124-130

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Arafat M. Goja and Mohamed S. Osman

Water quality and treatment are the most important issue in everywhere, especially in the developing countries, where safe and clean water is not continuously provided. Moringa oleifera is one of the best natural coagulants that has effectively used in water treatments. The aqueous extract of seeds, leaves and bark of Moringa oleifera was evaluated for their efficacy in reducing total bacterial load, coliform count and faecal coliform counts in the treatment of drinking water. The standard pour plate method and the most probable numbers were used in the determination of bacterial count.

The seed extracts showed a great effective in the reduction of total coliform count (55.9%) and faecal coliform count (92.5 %) as compared to bark (45.0 and 90.7 %) and leaf (47.1 and 88.7 %) extracts at 3g/100ml, respectively. From the results from this study, it can be concluded that the Moringa oleifera extracts (seed extracts) can be used as safe as non-toxic natural coagulant materials in household water treatment, especially in rural areas and small communities where no adequate and safe water supply is provided.

International Journal of Applied Science and Technology Vol. 2 No. 5; May 2012

Water Purification using Moringa oleifera and Other Locally Available Seeds in Fiji for Heavy Metal Removal

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Vikashni Nand

In this paper, the use of local seeds to improve the quality of drinking water in Fiji was investigated. Analysis of the heavy metals cadmium, copper, chromium, lead and zinc were performed before and after treatment of water with the local seeds Moringa oleifera, Arachis hypogaea (peanuts), Vigna unguiculata (cowpeas), Vigna mungo (urad) and Zea mays (corn). The results showed that Moringa seeds were capable of absorbing the heavy metals tested compared to other seeds in some water samples. The percentage removal by Moringa seeds were 90 % for copper, 80 % for lead, 60 % for cadmium and 50 % for zinc and chromium.

Criteria Report for Household Water Treatment Solutions: Community Choices Tool for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene, 2012.

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Pacific Institute

Criteria Used for Ranking Household Water Treatment Solutions. Below you can view information that clarifies how your individual answers to the questions impacted the Community Choices Tool’s recommendations for technologies and approaches that are appropriate for your situation and needs.

NOTE: This demonstration prototype of the Community Choices Tool contains rankings for the few solutions we have in the database. We envision that once fully developed, the Community Choices Tool will be able to evaluate and rank hundreds of technologies and approachesfor the entire WASH sector, and from those it will be able to create fully customized solutions for each user (rather than the static solutions it has now).

Study of Moringa oleifera (Drumstick) seed as natural Absorbent and Antimicrobial agent for River water treatment, 2012.

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Mangale S. M., Chonde S. G., Jadhav A. S., and Raut P. D. Department of Environmental Science, Shivaji University, Kolhapur, India

The present study was carried out to confirm the effectiveness of seed powder extracted from mature-dried Moringa oleifera seeds which are commonly available in most rural communities. The main objective of this work is to evaluate the antimicrobial activity and efficiency of a natural absorbent from Moringa oleifera seeds in treating river water.

During this study, surface water samples were collected for treatment by Moringa seeds in powdered form, resulting in an effective natural clarification agent for highly turbid and untreated pathogenic water. Various doses of Moringa seed powder viz. 50, 100 and 150 mg/l were taken and checked for the efficiency dose on raw water. After treatment of seed powder with water samples were analyzed for different parameter like pH, Turbidity, TDS, TS, Hardness, Chlorides, Alkalinity, Acidity, MPN and SPC.

All parameters were reduced with increasing dose of 50, 100 and 150 mg/l seed powder respectively (except alkalinity and pH). Application of this low cost Moringa oleifera seeds is recommended for eco-friendly, nontoxic, simplified water treatment where rural and peri-urban people living in extreme poverty.

Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development | 01.1 | 2011

Impact of a natural coagulant pretreatment for colour removal on solar water disinfection (SODIS)

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Sarah A. Wilson and Susan A. Andrews

Solar water disinfection (SODIS) is the process of treating microbiologically contaminated water in clear plastic bottles through exposure to sunlight. One of the major limiting factors of this treatment is source water quality. This work investigates the impact of source water colour on SODIS efficiency and evaluates a natural coagulant for colour removal. The ability of Moringa oleifera seed emulsion to both clarify and decolourize source waters was investigated as a coagulation pretreatment for SODIS.

This coagulant reduced the colour by more than two-thirds and achieved up to 1-log10 bacterial removal (90%). The combined Moringa oleifera coagulation-SODIS treatment sequence was tested in highly coloured natural source water and was found to reduce the sunlight exposure time required by up to 2 hours. However, despite being an effective clarification and decolouring process, the pretreatment may not shorten the overall treatment time because of its own labour and time requirements, potentially decreasing the treatment compliance rates. In addition, while total coliform and heterotrophic bacteria regrowth was observed during overnight storage of the treated water, no Escherichia coli regrowth was found to occur.

Journal of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development Vol. 3(6), pp. 102-112, June 2011

Harvesting surface rainwater – purification using Moringa oleifera seed extracts and aluminum sulfate

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Arama Peter Futi

Ground water harvesting is a method of collecting surface runoff from a catchment’s area and storing it in surface reservoirs. The water harvested is usually contaminated and turbid. Methods used to purify water include filtration, sedimentation, boiling and chlorination. This project was carried out in Nyatike district, Western Kenya where water is scarce and water-borne diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery are prevalent. The main objectives of the research were to disseminate water harvesting technology using hand-dug water pans and to evaluate the effect of Moringa oleifera seed extract as water purifier.

Sites were identified for construction of demonstration water pans. Moringa seeds were milled after which methanol was used to extract water soluble components.. Representative water samples from Victoria Lake, Kuja River and Otho pond were collected and subjected to purification studies using M. oleifera seed extract and aluminum sulfate. M. oleifera was also tested for antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli (ATCC 25922) Salmonella typhii and Vibrio cholerae (ref. Romel Cary Blair Lot. 452610).

A total of 452 farmers were trained in water harvesting and purification technologies. Studies on water purification indicated that Alum lowered the water pH from 7.4 to 4.4 while samples treated with Moringa extract did not affect water pH. Alum was the better water purifier whereby application of 0.25 g/L decreased water turbidity from 310.7 to 1.1 NTU while M. oleifera decreased turbidity to 45.6 NTU. M. oleifera extract showed antibacterial activity. S. typhii was the most sensitive while V. cholera was the least sensitive.

International Research Journal of Biochemistry and Bioinformatics (ISSN-2250-9941) Vol. 1(11) pp. 297-303, December 2011

Effectiveness of herbs in community water treatment

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R. Sowmeyan*, J. Santhosh and R. Latha
Faculty of Civil Engineering, Periyar Maniammai University, Vallam.613 403. Thanjavur, Tamilnadu, India.

The primary objective of this study is to identify the most appropriate herbal plants for the removal of contaminants from water and also to develop a water treatment kit at an affordable cost for rural folk. Nearly seven herbs namely Neem, Moringa Oleifera, Vettiver, Nirmali, Luffa cylindrica and orange peel were chosen for this study. The effectiveness of these herbs in the removal of turbidity, total hardness, total dissolved solids (TDS), fluoride, chloride, calcium and magnesium has been investigated. The results obtained from this study satisfy the drinking water standards prescribed by World Health Organization (WHO).

Journal of water, sanitation and hygiene for development, 2011, vol. 1, no2, pp. 112-123

Efficacy of an appropriate point-of-use water treatment intervention for low-income communities in India utilizing Moringa oleifera, sari-cloth filtration and solar UV disinfection

ALI Syed Imran ; MACDONALD Morgan ; JINCY J. ; ARUN SAMPATH K. ; VINOTHINI G. ; PHILIP Ligy ; HALL Kevin ; ARONSON Kristan ;

This study investigated the efficacy of a POU water treatment system featuring sari-cloth filtration and/ or Moringa oleifera coagulation as pre-treatments for solar disinfection (SODIS). Surface water from a peri-urban slum in Chennai, India, was treated and analysed for turbidity, organic content via chemical oxygen demand (COD) and microbiological quality via most probable number (MPN) enumeration of total coliforms. Pre-treatment with both moringa coagulation and sari-cloth filtration significantly improved the turbidity of raw water compared to no pre-treatment controls (P = 0.0002).

Optimal moringa coagulation did not outperform sari-cloth filtration (P = 0.06), but combining optimal moringa coagulation with sari-cloth filtration significantly outperformed either pre-treatment independently with respect to turbidity (P = 0.016 and P = 0.0001, respectively). The addition of moringa was found to increase COD in treated water, with greater doses of moringa resulting in higher COD levels (P = 0.04). Increased organics may have encouraged the re-growth of coliform bacteria that was observed in those jars receiving moringa coagulant such that, with respect to MPN, those jars which were subject to optimal moringa coagulation did not outperform those undergoing sari-cloth filtration alone (P = 0.41).

Sari-cloth filtration is recommended as a pre-treatment for SODIS whereas moringa is not, as further investigation on the relationship between organics and bacterial re-growth is necessary.