3.1. Effect of pH and trisodium citrate concentration on the protein adsorption
As mentioned before, the citrate ion was used as a bridge between Fe3O4 and leucaena protein, making the adsorption process effectively. The effect of adsorption pH and trisodium citrate concentration is presented in Figs. 1a and 1b. It could be observed in Fig. 1a, that pH played an important role in protein adsorption. With the increase of adsorption pH from 3.0 to 4.0, the leucaena protein adsorption capacity was also increased and reached the highest adsorption capacity at pH 4.0. Further increase of adsorption pH to 6.0 led to the decrease of protein adsorption. It is known that electrostatic force plays an important role in protein adsorption. From the pHpzc (Fig. 1c), it could be observed that citrate modified Fe3O4 had lower pI (around 3.9), compared to the pristine one (around 7.1). This result is consistent with previous research [36]. On the other hand, the leucaena protein’s pI was estimated around pH 4 (Fig. 1d), where the protein solubility is at its minimum [37]. At low pH, both Fe3O4 and leucaena protein had positive charges, thus repulsive forces between them making low adsorption. Similar phenomenon was possibly happened at pH above 4.0. The highest protein adsorption capacity was obtained at pH 4.0, which was near pI of leucaena protein. It is known that at pH near pI, the protein structure is at more compact conformation state, lowering repulsion forces between particles thus making higher protein adsorption possible [38]. Similar phenomenon has also been reported before [38, 39].
The effect of trisodium citrate concentration to the protein adsorption was further investigated. It was found that addition of trisodium citrate could increase the protein adsorption capacity. Based on Fig. 1b, it could be observed that the addition of trisodium citrate to 0.5 M increased the protein adsorption. We speculate it is possible due to with increase of citrate ion in the modification process, more citrate ions are adsorbed on Fe3O4 surface, making more protein adsorption possible. Further addition of citrate ion did not increase the adsorption capacity, due to all Fe3O4 surface already occupied. Similar result was also obtained by previous researchers [27]. Based on these results, the trisodium citrate of 0.5 M and protein adsorption at pH 4.0 were further characterized and used as magnetic coagulant.
3.2. Characterization of Fe-CA-Protein
The characteristics of Fe3O4 before and after protein modification are presented in Fig. 2. Based on the SEM observation, the nanoparticles were in form of aggregation of Fe3O4. The functionalization did not give any significant difference to the particle morphology. Similar spectra were also observed for Fe3O4 and Fe3O4-CA-protein samples, where both samples exhibited (111), (202), (311), (222), (400), (422), (511), and (440) peaks of magnetite [40]. Further calculation using Scherer equation showed that functionalized Fe3O4 had bigger average diameter of 58 nm, compared to pristine Fe3O4 (47 nm). Based on the Fe3O4 IR spectra, it could be observed that the sample exhibited a Fe-O vibration at 580 cm-1, and peaks at 1613, 3436 cm-1 that came from O-H vibration of water molecule on the crystal structure [41, 42]. After modification using CA, the Fe3O4-CA sample exhibited stronger peak at 1620 and 3436 cm-1 indicating symmetric stretching of C=O and O-H vibration from CA molecules that adsorbed on the surface of Fe3O4. After adsorption of protein, there are several peaks that could be observed: 1397 cm-1 bending vibration of C-H bonds, ~1600 cm-1 peak of N-H bending, while peaks around 3200-3400 cm-1 came from overlap of O-H and N-H stretching [27, 43]. The observed peaks indicated that protein from leucaena crude extract has been adsorbed on the surface of modified Fe3O4. The presence of coating of protein on Fe3O4 was visible in TEM image (Fig. 2f, white arrow), compared to pristine Fe3O4.
3.3. Effect of pH in coagulation
The effect of pH in the coagulation process is presented in Fig. 3. It could be observed that there was increase of removal from pH 2 to 3, and the highest removal of Congo red was obtained at pH 3. Very low removal was obtained while increasing the pH from 4 to 10, indicating no coagulation process happened. The leucaena protein on magnetic coagulant possessed pI around 4, thus at pH below 4, the magnetic coagulant would be positively charged. This charge was the opposite of Congo red molecules, which is known to be negatively charged at pH ≥ 3, making the coagulation process possible through charge neutralization mechanism. At pH 2, low coagulation performance was due to denaturation of protein molecules on the magnetic coagulant. Denaturation of protein is commonly observed at extremely low pH [44], making it inactive for coagulation process. On the other hand, at pH above leucaena protein pI value, both the coagulant and Congo red molecules were positively charge, thus no coagulation occurred at these conditions. Along with the increase of destabilized Congo red molecules, the more sludge volume was generated, as observed in pH 3. As very low removal was observed at pH 4-10, minimum destabilization was occurred, resulting in no observed sludge. Similar result was obtained in our previous studies using leucaena crude extract as natural coagulant, where pH 3 was the best pH for coagulation [10, 31].
3.4. Effect of magnetic coagulant dosage
The study of magnetic coagulant dosage was done at pH 3, which was found as the best pH for coagulation. The profile of % removal and sludge volume at various dosages is presented in Fig. 4. At low coagulant dosage, there was insufficient coagulant to neutralize the Congo red molecules, resulting on low removal. With increase of magnetic coagulant dosage, the removal was also increased until dosage of 420 mg L-1. Further increase of magnetic coagulant dosage to 600 mg L-1 did not give any significant increase to the removal of Congo red. This was possible due to over addition of coagulant limiting the adsorption efficiency, as the magnetic coagulant particle could aggregate to each other [45] lowering the coagulation efficiency. Furthermore colloid re-stabilization is known to be commonly happened under over addition of coagulant [46]. This phenomenon could decrease the removal efficiency. Similar trend was also observed for the sludge volume.
The Congo red removal as function of time is presented in Fig. 5. Comparison experiments were done using only leucaena crude extract and Fe3O4 with concentration of 370 mg eq BSA L-1 and 50 mg L-1 respectively, proportional to the adsorbed protein at the best magnetic coagulant dosage (420 mg L-1). It could be observed that significant removal was obtained at the first 20 min and became relatively constant until 60 min. This observation showed the significance of Fe3O4 in the magnetic coagulant that increased the removal kinetics, compared to leucaena crude extract that need 40 min before reached constant. It could be also observed in Fig. 5b, the Fe3O4 did not contribute to the Congo red removal, indicating the leucaena protein was the active coagulating agent.
The Congo red removal kinetics was further investigated using various kinetic models, namely: pseudo 1st order, pseudo 2nd order, Elovich, and interparticle diffusion models. It is known that coagulation mechanism in this study was charge neutralization which is usually preceded by adsorption of dye molecules on active coagulating agent. The adsorption step usually becomes the rate determining step in coagulation study, making adsorption models suitable for removal evaluation [47]. According to Obiora-Okafo et al. [48], this phenomenon is possible due to the polymeric nature of natural coagulants. The fitting result of various kinetic models is presented in Table 1, and sample of model plots is presented in Fig. 6. Based on the R2 value, it could be seen that pseudo 2nd order kinetics was highly suitable for kinetics modeling with R2 value of 0.99, while the Elovich and intra-particle diffusion models also gave good model-data correlation with R2 value around 0.70 to 0.90. Suitability of the pseudo 2nd order and Elovich kinetics to the removal of Congo red implied that the adsorption occurred during coagulation was chemisorption. It was possible due to the different charges between proteins on the magnetic coagulant and the Congo red molecules, making dipole-dipole interaction possible [49]. A 2-phase plot was observed in the interparticle diffusion model (Fig. 6d), indicating there are 2 determining step, namely surface adsorption followed by intra-particle diffusion. Similar conclusions of removal kinetic were also obtained in previous researches [6, 10, 50, 51].
Based on the characterization results and suitability of the kinetic models, an illustration of coagulation mechanism is presented in Fig. 7. One of –COOH of citrate ions was adsorbed to the surface of Fe3O4, while the others were available for protein binding. The overall magnetic coagulant was positively charged, following the charge of leucaena protein adsorbed on Fe3O4-CA, thus neutralizing the negatively charged Congo red molecules. The measurement of PV was done at the best magnetic coagulant condition (pH 3, dosage of 420 mg L-1). Initial Congo red wastewater had PV of 8.6 mg KMnO4 L-1, and water treated using leucaena crude extract showed 15.0 mg KMnO4 L-1 (increase of 49%). This increase was possible due to the presence of various soluble organic compounds in the crude extract. The magnetic coagulant showed lower increase of PV (18%), compared to the leucaena crude extract, due to desorbed protein in the treated wastewater.