Remediation of Domestic Wastewater Runoff Using Vermi-biofiltration

Amornrat Phothisansakul¹ and Theerawat Runguphan^1,

¹Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Technology, Silpakorn University, Nakorn Pathom, Thailand

Cite this paper:
Amornrat Phothisansakul and Theerawat Runguphan. Remediation of Domestic Wastewater Runoff Using Vermi-biofiltration. International Journal of Environmental Bioremediation & Biodegradation. 2017; 5(2):60-64. doi: 10.12691/ijebb-5-2-4

Abstract

Remediation of domestic wastewater by indigenous vegetation was carried out using wastewater runoff within Silpakorn University, Sanam Chandra Palace Campus, Thailand. The treatment system utilizes the biological filtration treatment unit working in conjunction with earthworm, the living organism in soil, and vegetation to form a joint wastewater treatment unit, vermi-biofiltration, to treat domestic wastewater. The joint system operates by means of the raw wastewater percolates vertically through layers of physical and biological filtration media in a container tank topped with a layer earthworm-filled soil and vegetation to further phytoremediate the wastewater. The wastewater runoffs were collected from 2 sources having two levels of COD, Low (with COD ranging from 40-100 mg/L) and Medium (with COD ranging from 500-800 mg/L). The subjected wastewater went through 7 cycles of treatment and had their water quality parameters measured to determine the treatment efficiency in comparison to the system with stand-alone filtration. Results showed that the vermi-biofiltration system, combining soil living organism and plant phytoremediation was effective in treating domestic wastewater runoff and yielded significantly better water quality parameters (in terms of COD, TSS, TDS and TS concentration) when compared to system that only undergone filtration.

Keywords:
remediation phytoremediation vermi-biofiltration water quality

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