Abstract
Titanium (Ti) salt has been used in wastewater flocculation and significantly decreases the pH of wastewater which is not industrially preferable. Thus, this study aims to use a natural polymer, chitosan, with Ti salt to observe a significant impact on pH of Ti salt flocculation and significantly reduce the produced sludge volume. The impact of chitosan addition on Ti salt flocculation pH, Ti salt optimum dose, Ti sludge, turbidity and organic removal was investigated. The results showed that using an optimum dose of 25 mg/L of Ti salt, Ti salt flocculation pH sharply decreased to 3.20 with turbidity and organic removal reaching 80 and 70%, respectively. The addition of chitosan to the Ti salt is found to be very effective due to the ability of chitosan foils to bridge the neutralised wastewater particles. The use of low doses of Ti salt with chitosan had an impact on flocculation pH and resulted in 40% of Ti sludge reduction.