Study on the Germicidal Effect of Bitter Bark Tree (Sacoglottis gabonensis) on Water Purification

The germicidal effect of bitter bark tree was the focus of the study. The study aimed at determining the inhibitory effect of the plant bark extract in reducing the microbial load in water, and to evaluate its suitability as natural alternative to chlorination, ozonation, UV treatment, micro-filtration and reverse osmosis. The extraction of the plant bark was done with water and alcohol respectively. Water from different sources were collected and mixed together before treatment. The extraction was done in three stages and at different concentrations of the bark extracts, namely 0.1 g/ml, 0.2 g/ml and 0.3 g/ml respectively using cold and hot water for aqueous extracts, while ethanol was used for alcoholic extract. Two media – Eosin methylene blue and MacConkey agar were employed for the total coliform count. The result shows that there was no trace of coliforms in the water after treatment with alcoholic extract at all concentration. However, the hot aqueous extract was more effective than the cold extract within the operating concentrations. Thus, the process is temperature and concentration dependent as increase in both resulted in elimination of the coliforms. However, the organoleptic properties of the water such as taste and smell were preserved. Thus, there is a slight change in the colour of the water which was taken care of with activated charcoal. The work therefore shows that Sacoglottis gabonensis bark extract contains anti-microbial agents, and hence can serve as a suitable preservative for water both for domestic and industrial purposes.