Applying the experiment design approach to minimize pollutants in olive mill wastewater using aluminum sulfate and ferric chloride as coagulants. West Bank—occupied Palestinian territories

A significant environmental contaminant in the West Bank and the Mediterranean Basin is olive mill wastewater (OMWW). OMWW was released between mid-September and mid-November, when harvesting was taking place. This led to environmental issues with soil, water resources, and the ecology. The optimization of the removal of organic compounds as total suspended solids (TSS), chemical oxygen demand (COD), and total polyphenols group (TP) pollutants is the main goal of this study. Both aluminum sulfate (AS) and ferric chloride (FC) are utilized as coagulants. The ideal dosages, coagulant types, and pH values to reduce the concentration of these pollutants were determined using the Design of Expert program (DoE). For the AS and FC, the optimal pH range is between 4 and 5, which reduces the TSS by roughly 93 % and 80 %, respectively. By using AS and FC, respectively, COD was removed at rates of 68 % and 58 %, and 0.5 g/l was the ideal coagulant concentration dose. The most important factor affecting the elimination procedure was the pH level. The outcomes show that those three contaminants can be successfully eliminated by the coagulation process. TSS ranges between 90 % and 96 %, COD between 53 % and 73 %, and TP between 11 % and 37 % when the two coagulate salts are used