Effect of Plant Filtration Medium on Environmental Properties of Domestically Generated Greywater.

Abstract

Water scarcity is a major problem in developing countries especially in the middle east and African countries thus necessitating domestic water recycling. A portable 3-layer, transparent domestic greywater treatment was designed and constructed for this study. Waste water was collected from Boluid cafeteria located in Nnamdi Azikwe Hall, University of Ibadan, Nigeria and pre-filtered using 1.00 mm sieve before stored in a cooler, Filtration media made from kenaf fibre and core obtained from the Institute of Agriculture and Research Training (I.A.R.&T) Moor Plantation, Ibadan, Nigeria. The kenaf fibre was hand woven into mat and placed within treatment unit while the kenaf stem were further milled using a plate mill and packaged in water permeable medium. The parameters (DO, TSS, TDS, pH, Electrical conductivity and temperature) of the influent as well as the effluent were measured to determine the effect of treatment on the greywater. No significant changes were recorded for pH and temperature. DO reduced by 13.03% and 9.67% for core and fibre treatment respectively, TDS by 13.25% and 12.71% for fibre and core correspondingly. Suspended Solids recorded a percentage reduction of 26.93% and 18.08% for both core and fibre strained effluents, the electrical conductivity reduced by 5.01% and 5.38% for core and fibre percolated layers while the turbidity decreased by 34.36% and 42.82% for both core and fibre filtered greywater. Changes in parameters signifies the treatment had occurred, the pH, temperature, TDS as well as electrical conductivity of the effluents were within the acceptable limits specified for reuse whereas the turbidity, TSS as well as DO signify extra measures needed to be taken.