Flow Behaviour of Wastewater Contaminants in Compost with Manufactured Sand (M-SAND) Under Layered Conditions

Abstract

In order to improve the suitability of recycled water for managing the supply and demand with a sustainable technique, a laboratory-scale column experiment was conducted to comprehend the flow behaviour coming out from varied layers with respect to time and depth. This study deals with transfer of wastewater collected from sewage treatment plant through the multiple layers of river sand, Manufactured sand and compost filled under saturation and breakthrough behaviour was monitored. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate experimentally the ammonia-nitrogen and nitrate-nitrogen transport phenomena of the wastewater effluent collected from a sewage treatment plant with respect to time. The samples taken at regular time intervals were tested for the critical parameters pH, electrical conductivity, ammonia-nitrogen, nitrate-nitrogen and chemical oxygen demand assessed with respect to time. The pH ranges observed were almost consistent with contact time in different beds of column whereas the electrical conductivity reaches a maximum at a specific time up to 5 times greater than the minimum value. The ionic transition in relation to dilution, filtration, oxidation, etc. may be the cause of this. The compost-filled column has the capacity to nitrify the ammonia-nitrogen in wastewater, according to the flow behaviour of the ammonia-nitrogen through the wastewater through the M-sand-filled column. The column containing compost showed lower outlet concentration of wastewater ammonia-nitrogen and higher nitrate-nitrogen compared to the other one. The study is useful in the agricultural sector for predicting interactions between sand, waste water, and compost.