Design and Performance Testing of a Multimedia Filtration System for Municipal Wastewater Treatment in Rajshahi City

Abstract

Among the most paramount components involved in the creation and development of healthy life, significance of water is undoubtedly immense and undeniable. To cope with ever increasing need for safe water use with respect to existing limited resources, wastewater treatment has earned spectacular consciousness to ensure more fruitful and operative use of wastewater globally. Although expensive conventional wastewater treatment methods obstruct this purpose, the quest for cost-effective and sustainable methods has been prime concern in modern times. Thus, agricultural waste materials as adsorbents can impose as a viable option to be used for removing organic and heavy metal ions due to their flexibility respecting availability and cost. Out of numerous well established treatment methods, filtration is one which is simple and cost-effective respecting environmental sustainability and economy. As a consequence of significant tested advancements over single media filters, a multimedia filter model was developed by plastic bottle for treatment of wastewater in this study. Packing media used were Activated carbon, Rice husk, and Sand. Standard procedures were applied to obtain physical and chemical parameters, i.e. pH, Electrical Conductivity, Turbidity, Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), Total Suspended Solids (TSS), Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), and Organic Content (OC) etc. of both raw wastewater and wastewater treated with adsorbents. The pH value changed up to 2.63%, the color changed from soapy and cloudy to colorless, conductivity, turbidity and BOD was reduced up to 12.43%, 81.33 %, and 82.1 % respectively. The significant removal of TSS, TDS and OC was up to 47.06 %, 47.88 % and 68.75 % respectively. Obtained test results specify significant improvements on water quality parameters clearly. Thus, an overall assessment of multimedia filter technology as an alternative approach to conventional wastewater treatment methods in order to reuse them for various purposes such as agricultural irrigation, landscape watering, industrial recycling and reuse etc. is achieved through this study.