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
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.
