Wastewater Treatment by using Banana Stems and Rice Straw as Bio-carriers for Agriculture Purposes

  • Badr E. Hegazy, Aml S. Diab, Rehab M. Elhefny

Abstract

Water scarcity is a global concern that threats all life aspects, especially human life so, searching for a way to minimize the negative effects of water scarcity is the golden solution. This goal was achieved by searching for alternative water sources such as treated wastewater to reuse it besides freshwater resources in different fields such as irrigation. In this study, a fixed bioreactor was used as a simulation of the biological treatment technology depending on agricultural wastes instead of high-cost plastic media. Three rectangular tanks were established to perform the suitable treatment of pasta wastewater. A primary sedimentation tank, FBR tank, and final settling tank with the same dimensions were used in this experimental study to perform the treatment process. Banana stem and rice straw were used as bio-carriers with a filling ratio of 25 % to increase the microbial population inside the FBR tank. After analyzing the physiochemical parameters of pasta wastewater, the final COD, BOD, TSS, TN, and TP concentrations of pasta wastewater after the final settling tank in case of using banana stem were 37.3, 28.6, 42.4, 5.9, and 0.22 mg/l, respectively. In the case of using rice straw as a packing media, the final COD, BOD, TSS, TN, and TP concentrations were 78.6, 63.4, 48.8, 7.1, and 0.31 mg/l, respectively. It was proved that using banana stem was more effective than rice straw in reducing pasta wastewater pollutants, and the final effluent was suitable to be used for unrestricted irrigation as the final concentrations were below the allowable limitations of law 92 for 2013.

Published
2023-02-01
How to Cite
Aml S. Diab, Rehab M. Elhefny, B. E. H. (2023). Wastewater Treatment by using Banana Stems and Rice Straw as Bio-carriers for Agriculture Purposes. Design Engineering, (1), 79 - 96. Retrieved from http://thedesignengineering.com/index.php/DE/article/view/9757
Section
Articles