O I Nkwonta, G M Ochieng
Wastewater treatment using local available materials such as gravel and charcoal was investigated. The removal of TDS from roughing filters was evaluated for roughing filtration treatment system. Achieved results showed that roughing filters could be considered as a major pretreatment process for wastewater, since they efficiently separate fine solids particles over prolonged periods without addition of chemicals. A pilot plant was designed at delcoal. The wastewater used was from delcoal. The design and sizing of the pilot plant was guided by wegelin design criteria. Gravel was used as a control medium since it is one of the most commonly used roughing filter media and because it was used in developing these criteria. In order to improve the performance of roughing filters, this process has been modified by applying local available material such as charcoal as an alternative filter media. The pilot plant was monitored for a continuous 90 days from commissioning. The overall function of the filter in removing parameters such as TDS is accepted using charcoal as an alternative filter media. Achieved results in this study showed that roughing filters might be considered as an efficient pretreatment process for mine water. It was also observed that in general performance, charcoal performed better than gravel. This observation could have resulted from the reason that charcoal has a slightly higher specific surface area and porosity respectively to enhance sedimentation and other filtration processes like adsorption, compared to gravel.
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