Pollution Research Paper

PRE-TREATMENT OF THE MUNICIPAL WASTEWATER WITH CHEMICAL COAGULANTS

DALJEET SINGH DHANJAL, SIMRANJEET SINGH, DEEPIKA BHATIA, JOGINDER SINGH,NEETA RAJ SHARMA AND RAMESHWAR S. KANWAR

Abstract

In the present study an attempt was made for the assessment of different coagulants such as Alum, Potash Alum and Poly Aluminium Chloride to recognize the effective and the optimum dosage of coagulant for pre-treatment of the municipal wastewater effluent of Buddha Nallah, Ludhiana. As the development in the industrial sector has elevated the level of heavy metals and other solids in wastewater that are either used or synthesized as the by-product of the industrial process and emerging as environmental pollutants. Due to decline in the quality of water the pre-treatment is required to be employed by the industries and used to treat the effluent before discharging it in the municipal stream. The present study focusses on the selection and optimization of dosage of coagulants based on their physiochemical parameters such as pH, Electrical Conductivity, Total Dissolved Solids, Total Suspended Solids and Turbidity. The dosage opted for the current studs were in the range of 200-600 mg/L of the individual coagulant to test their effectiveness against the different physiochemical parameters. On analysis it was found that each coagulant were effective in decreasing the value of various physiochemical parameters from the untreated samples. Out of these three coagulants, the most effective was the PAC which revealed the result 7.16 ± 0.14, 700.3 ± 3.4 μS/cm, 973 ± 7.07 mg/L, 715 ± 14.14 mg/L and 4.5 ± 0.71 NTU for pH, EC, TDS, TSS and turbidity respectively at the lower dosage of 500 mg/L as compared to 6.81 ± 0.21, 681 ± 1.9 μS/cm, 943 ± 12.73 mg/L, 695 ± 7.07 mg/L and 5.5 ± 0.71 NTU for pH, EC, TDS, TSS and Turbidity respectively for the alum and 7.33 ± 0.06, 681 ± 1.8 μS/cm, 940.5 ± 3.54 mg/L, 692.5 ± 10.61 mg/L and 6 NTU and 6 for pH, EC, TDS, TSS and turbidity respectively for Potash Alum which showed their effectiveness at the dosage of the 600 mg/L.