Efficiency of Vertical Eco Filtration to treat the Coloured industrial Effluents

Sayali Joshi Priyamvada Joshi Abstract Due to rapid urbanization and industrialization, management of wastewater has become a global challenge for all countries. Various advanced techniques are available in pollution business market for the treatment of wastewater like ultra filtration, reverse osmosis etc. These techniques are costly and mechanistic based on engineering principles rather than treatment processes for proper reduction of pollutants to attain the compliance with affordable costs. But Vertical Eco Filtration (Soil Scape Filter) is an advanced ecotechnological unit which treats all types of industrial effluents having organic and inorganic pollutants. Vertical Eco Filtration treat organic and inorganic effluents simultaneously. Various pilot scale and field applications of Soil Scape filter on different effluents have confirmed that it can treat wastewaters containing high concentrations of COD, BOD, colour, turbidity, and odour. The range of pollution reduction using Soil Scape Filter is experienced as 50 99% for organic pollutants, and 97 - 99% for colour and odour reduction. Keywords: effluents, organic, colour, vertical ecofiltration

Address for correspondence Shrishti Eco Research Institute (SERI) B-106, Devgiri, Opp. P. L. Deshpande Garden Ganesh mala, Sinhgad Road, Pune 411030 Ph. no. 91 20 66206539/24253773

Introduction

There are diverse treatment technologies and systems for the wastewater management1. But these systems involve skilled maintenance, high electricity, and trained manpower for its regular operation. The major drawback of these sophisticated conventional mechanized systems is as they are not indigenous and need more time to get accustomed to local geo-climatic conditions however being indigenously developed, Soil Scape filter (Vertical Eco Filtration technique) has overcome on these major issues. In the soil scape filter, there are no breakdowns and downtimes. Minimal running costs are required with the help of unskilled manpower. No toxic waste is generated, hence making it very eco friendly2. The waste is consumed by consortium of microorganism and plants bio- machinery of our system. Ecologically pure water can be then recycled or reused.

In this paper, results obtained from application of soil scape filter are discussed. Vertical Eco Filtration system (Soil Scape filter) is innovated by Sandeep Joshi. His pioneering work in ecosystem approach and ecotechnology has led to cost effective and eco-friendly treatment of industrial and sewage effluents3. Ecotechnological systems have been developed 15 16 years ago through scientific rigorous lab scale, pilot studies, and field trials to evolve process and design parameters considering the biochemical kinetics and confirming the applicability for domestic as well as industrial wastewaters. These applications involved vertical eco-filtration (Soil Scape Filter) with surface subsurface application.

Methodology

Application of soil scape filter to treat the effluents

Sr. no.

Industrial Units

Capacity (cum/day)

COD (mg/lit)

Type of soil scape unit

1.

Plasticizers & pigment manufacturing unit

30

36,000

Full Scale

2. 3. 4. 5.

Synthetic fiber unit (Nylon) Dying Unit (Synthetic Dyes) Dying Unit (Natural Dyes) Mixture of dye effluents in the lake (Noor Mohammad Kuntha)

40 10 5 27 acres

2180 5000 1200 350

Full Scale Full Scale Full Scale Pilot Scale

The field scale units of Soil Scape Filters were developed in each of the industrial unit and pilot plant on the shore of lake was installed to evaluate the efficacy of the system in removal of COD, BOD, colour and odour. These installations are shown in following fig.

Soil Scape Filter

Water Distribution Biological System with bioactive soil layer

Supporting Medium

Outlet

The collected untreated and treated samples were tested for pH, COD, BOD, colour and odour using standard sampling and testing procedures as per Standard Methods, APHA.

Results The results are tabulated as follows

Sr. No. 1.

Sample from Plasticizer & Pigment (FS) Synthetic fibre (FS) Synthetic textile dyeing (FS) Natural textile dyeing (FS) Noor Mohammad (PS)

COD mg/L UnT T % 36,000 256 99

Reduction in Concentration BOD mg/L TSS mg/L UnT T % UnT T % 8,000 124 98 2568 104 96

Colour, hazen UnT T % 3400 15 99

2. 3.

2160 5200

180 168

92 97

330 1240

41 86

88 93

204 1238

21.6 64

89 95

690 880

20 12

97 99

4.

1200

176

85

360

24

93

484

18

96

1200

99

5.

340

120

64

136

64

53

413

36

91

480

98

Where FS UnT = Field Scale = Untreated PS T = Pilot Scale = Treated

Percent reduction of COD, BOD, TSS and colour can be graphically shown in fig.

Reduction in Critical Pollution Parameters

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Plasticizer & Synthetic Pigment (FS) fibre (FS) Synthetic Natural Noor textile textile Mohammad dyeing (FS) dyeing (FS) (PS)

Legends: COD BOD TSS Colour

% Reduction

Type of industrial unit

Discussion Ecotechnological treatment system Soil Scape Filter vertical eco-filtration is found to be suitable for simultaneous reduction of COD, BOD, TSS and colour which is normally not possible using conventional physicochemical and secondary biological systems. In comparison with conventional systems of settling with coagulant aids, the ecofriendly system found to be more efficient in treating pollutants. These eco-friendly systems were installed where the conventional systems were failed to deliver the designated results of treatment despite of continuous application of chemicals and energy intensive mechanical equipment. It was observed that the effluents from the industrial units studied were toxic for the secondary biological treatment. Therefore they required to dilute the effluents pretreatment or post-treatment. But with ecotechnological system, it can be stated that the toxicity was nullified due to ecological processes occurred due to multi-species actions. There are numerous references in the literature that biological species can degrade, convert and transform the toxicants into simple assimilable by-products4. It can be stated that the efficiency of Soil Scape Filter increased while treating the high strength wastewaters while attaining the prescribed standard norms. Treatment of dilute water of Noor Mohammad Kuntha lake is found promising to treat such lakes which receive industrial and domestic wastewaters from surrounding communities and complexes.

Acknowledgement We are thankful to Sandeep Joshi, Environment Technologist to work on ecotechnological field scale and pilot scale installations.

References 1. Joshi, Sandeep (2001) Soil-Scape Process in comparison with conventional technologies. Proceedings of seminar on Management of the existing water and sewage treatment facilities & services: Case studies & Analyses of proposals for future development organised by IPHE, Kolkata. 2. Joshi, Sandeep (2000) Ecotechnological treatment for Industrial Wastewater containing Heavy Metals, Journal of Indian Association of Environment Management. 27 (2): 98 102. 3. Joshi, Sandeep (2009), Joshi, Sayali (2009) Ecoplanning and ecotechnological solutions for the wastewaters from point and non-point sources of modern urbanization in the Ujjani Reservoir Catchment at international forum of 13th world lake conference at Wuhan, China, concluded in first week of Nov. 2009. 4. Joshi, Sandeep (2000) Environmental Biotechnology in Pollution Control. Proceedings of National Conference on Environment Monitoring held at Chalisgaon Dist. Jalgaon, Maharashtra State on Dec. 23 - 26, 2000. Pp. 21 - 34.