Abstract
Discharge of personal care products from salons through the sanitary sewer system has recently become a new generation environmental concern. This study presents a detailed assay of the salon wastewater with emphasis on physicochemical properties such as pH, total organic carbon (TOC), turbidity, electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), and chemical composition. Salon wastewater samples were collected directly from two salons in central Johannesburg, South Africa, using the composite sampling method. Determination of physicochemical properties of the wastewater samples was performed before and after pretreatment using the rapid granular multimedia filter. The pH of the wastewater ranged between 7.47 and 9.77, the electrical conductivity was reduced from 344.1 to 312.8 μS cm-1 and from 453 to 412 μS cm-1 for both site 1 and 2 respectively. Pretreatment of the wastewater with the multimedia granular filter resulted in a decline in TDS from 309.5 to 211.4 mg L-1 for site 1 and 315 to 226 mg L-1 for site 2. This was accompanied by a decrease in turbidity of the wastewater. The TOC content declined from a high of 61.5 to about 0.8 mgC L-1. LC-MS analysis of the pretreated wastewater confirmed the presence of several organic compounds with masses ranging from 164.16 to 516.315 g mol-1. This mass range correlate with compounds commonly used in personal care products.
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