Study of Treated Wastewater Using Phytorid Technology in RIT Campus

Abstract

Earth is often referred to as the blue planet as oceans and other water bodies occupy around three-fourths of the Earth's surface and constitute 70% of the Earth. But only about 1% is available as freshwater. Water is essential for the existence of life and our bodies are mostly made of it. Due to rapid growth in population and industrialization, water consumption has increased, leading to water scarcity and related water pollution problems. The overall use of water is going to increase manyfold in the years to come and the effects of climate change are going to become more and more evident than ever before. It is predicted that water stress will get even worse. Greywater (GW) is a promising candidate as a substitute water source in semi-arid regions of the globe. Although one best way to treat GW cannot be said, artificial wetlands have proven to be an efficient and cost-effective option. The study is based on an environmentally friendly approach to water treatment on wastewater produced on the college campus. The work was done in the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology cafeteria using phytorid technology. The fact that distinct phytorid technology from conventional methods is that it uses natural components like plants, soil, gravel, stone, charcoal, etc. for treatment. Heliconia psittacorum (Parrot Heliconia), Chrysopogon zizanioides (Vetiver), Colocasia esculenta (Green Taro), Canna indica (Indian Shot), which are indigenous to the region and abundantly available in the Western Ghats, were used in the constructed wetland. The water quality assessment parameters like temperature, pH, turbidity, hardness, chloride concentration, dissolved oxygen, phosphate, BOD, and COD are used to validate the performance of the proposed greywater treatment system. The test was conducted to confirm the efficiency of the treatment in the water sample, obtaining very high removal yields on turbidity (97.42%), total suspended solids (89.82%), BOD (89.32%), and COD (93%).