Abstract:
Papaya seeds (Carica papaya) are waste from papaya fruit which is thrown away by the
community because they are considered useless. This study aims to prepare, characterize
and determine the effectiveness of papaya seeds as a biocoagulant in removing color from
peat water. Papaya seeds were extracted for 1 minute with each solvent aqua DM (BPH2O)
and 0.5 M NaCl (BPNaCl). Characterization of biocoagulants was carried out by determining
functional groups using FTIR and protein content using the Lowry test. Determination of
the effectiveness of papaya seed biocoagulant performance was determined by a variety of
coagulation methods (referring to two studies). The method used is coagulation-flocculation
using jartest. The results of the FTIR analysis showed the presence of functional groups
from the O-H (carboxylic acid), N-H (amine), C-H, C=O (carbonyl) and C-O (carboxylic
acid) groups. The appearance of amine and carboxylic acid groups indicated the presence of
protein in the papaya seed biocoagulant, both extracted with 0.5 M NaCl and aqua DM. The
results of the analysis of protein levels BPNaCl-1 0.83% and 0.46% BPH2O-1. The
optimum color removal for BPNaCl-1 (method 1) was 96.6 TCU.
