Study on domestic wastewater treated using modified rice husk slow sand filter

• Main Author: Ooi, Yew Kun
• Format: Undergraduates Project Papers
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: TD Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering
• Online Access: http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/12383/1/FKASA%20-%20OOI%20YEW%20KUN.PDF; http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/12383/

Domestic wastewater discharges from domestic residences, commercial, industrial or institutional and other similar facilities premises into the public sewer. This wastewater was originated from all aspects of human sanitary water usage. It is a potential wastewater source to be treated in future. It is because it contributes the most to water pollution problem. Adsorption, chemical reaction, filtration, ion-exchange, coagulation, flocculation reverse osmosis and so on are the technologies used to treatwater and wastewater. Those technologies are costly and involved a lot of chemical usage and create a lot of chemical sludge. In addition, rice husk causes disposal problem because it is a hardly biodegraded materials and contains highly in silica when it is in ash form which will reduce the quality of soil. The aims of this study was to design a low cost and effective filter by adding agriculture waste to purify domestic wastewater, evaluate the potential of modified rice husk slow sand filter, MRHSSF in treating domestic wastewater to achieve the standard A and Class 1 of wastewater standard and investigate the optimum retention time for the optimum effectiveness of MRHSSF in removal of the impurities in domestic wastewater. The MRHSSF consist of four components which are sand bed with 0.15mm to 0.30mm and 0.625mm to 1.18mm diameter in size, 0.5 mol sulph7ate acid modified rice husk (0.075mm - 0.015mm diameter), 10mm diameter river gravels and under drainage. The selected domestic wastewater was filtrate using MRHSSF and all the raw and treated water samples were tested to know its contaminants. This study successfully shows that modified rice husk slow sand filter, MRHSSF was effectively removed up to 100% in BOD5, COD, TSS, Fe, Pb and E.coli, 98.6% in turbidity and 97% in oil and grease respectively. Besides that, MRIIS SF was also treated domestic wastewater to achieve Standard A for pH, temperature, BOD5, COD, TSS, Fe, Pb and Zn, Standard B for oil and grease or Classi for turbidity, total coliforms, E.coli and TDS according to Environment Quality (Sewerage and Industrial Effluences) Regulations, 1979 and Interim National Water Quality Standard (INWQS). The retention time for MRHSSF to achieve its equilibrium was on the third hours where there was 98.8% removal of BOD 5, 99.1% of COD, 98.5% of turbidity, 98.8% of TSS and 100% of E.coli, Fe and Pb respectively. This study showed that MRHSSF is a cheap and effective in treating domestic wastewater. Thus, it can be continued with some improvements in future research or commercial usage to reduce the environmental problems especially water pollution.