Authors: Badejo A. A., Coker A. O, Sridhar M. K. C
Research Journal in Engineering and Applied Sciences 1(5) 274-277
Abstract
Tertiary hospital wastewater in Nigeria constitutes a risk to public health due to inadequate treatment as the conventional treatment plants proved non-sustainable.
Conventional treatment systems require high level of operation skills, communities that operate such are constantly faced with the annual energy and labour cost. The wastewater treatment system at University College Hospital, had completely broken down due to poor maintenance caused by lack of spare parts, unstable power supply and inadequate funding. Reedbed technology using locally available macrophytes was evaluated in treating the wastewater from the University College Hospital, Ibadan. The wastewater quality parameters pH, Suspended Solids (SS), Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Dissolved Oxygen (DO), Ammonia (NH3), Nitrates ( ), and Phosphates ( ), contents were followed for the assessment of performance of the biological treatment. Flow-rates were monitored using a Valeport Braystoke BFM002 miniature current meter. Five beds were used in the experiment each bed has 10-15 mm sized granite overlaid by 0.2 m washed sand as media with 0.2 m void volume. Composition of wastewater displayed considerable variability (pH 7.5±0.3, 0.2±0.1 mg/L, 3.9±2.5 mg/L, NH3 19.5±6.3 mg/L, SS 204.1±23.9 mg/L, DO 0.9±0.8 mg/L and BOD 310.6±29.9 mg/L). The pilot scale reedbed showed reduction of BOD 82.0% and 85.0%, TDS 72.0% and 73.0%, 78.0% and 81.0%, 61.0% and 65.0% for V. nigritana and P. karka respectively. Reedbed Technology using Vetiveria nigritana and Phragmites karka was found to be efficient in wastewater treatment. The design and construction of this treatment facility did not entail the use of any mechanical component and, thus, the maintenance requirement is minimal
Keywords: Phragmites Karka, Reedbed, Tertiary Hospital, Vetiveria Nigritana, Wastewater