- Title
- Modification and application of the decentralised wastewater treatment technology for greywater treatment to reduce water needs
- Creator
- Ngqwala, Nosiphiwe Patience
- Subject
- Uncatalogued
- Date Issued
- 2015
- Date
- 2015
- Type
- Doctoral theses
- Type
- text
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/193509
- Identifier
- vital:45338
- Description
- Water is a scarce resource that is being acknowledged as a limiting factor to further social- economic growth and development. Demand for freshwater is increasing with corresponding increases in human population, industrial and agricultural activities. Alternative sources, such as greywater and rainwater are often polluted. Though greywater can be used for non-potable purposes, such as irrigation, it still requires some measures of treatment to improve its quality. To improve on greywater quality to facilitate its reuse, decentralised wastewater treatment technologies carry a great potential as complementary and alternative means of wastewater management particularly in peri-urban areas. Five research goals are addressed in this thesis: (i) to monitor the performance of Fly Ash Lime Filter Tower (FLFT) in the treatment of greywater; (ii) to modify the Fly Ash Lime Filter Tower in the treatment of greywater in order to reduce the pH of the greywater, and improved on the reduction of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and coliform counts; (iii) to investigate the potential of the reuse of greywater for irrigation; (iv) to undertake a techno analysis of the FLFT system for commercial use; and (v) to evaluate the use of hydrogen-sulphide (H2S) test kit to monitor faecal contamination of various water sources using a multidisciplinary approach. The modification of the FLFT indicated good treatment efficiency, reducing the concentrations of COD, chlorides, nitrates, ammonia and sulphate by 82.6%, 60.4%, 72.9%, 60.5%, and 53.9%, respectively; while the average pH was at 8.3. Greywater contains nutrients that are beneficial to the growth of most plants. Growth variables included biomass, stem height, number of leaves and number of vegetables harvested. Soil analysis showed no effects of the treated greywater on soil physico-chemical and microbial quality with bulk density 2.0g/cm3, average pH 7.4, total phosphorus 0.16mg/L 8, faecal coliform 0.3 CFU/100 ml. The tomatoes had high biomass and dry weight (150 g; 33g) than beetroot (35 g; 15 g). Crops irrigated with greywater significantly grew faster compared with those irrigated with tap water. The community approach highlighted the value of knowledge management in greywater reuse. It highlighted the importance of creating an institutional knowledge in water management using the H2S kit. The techno-economic analysis was used to evaluate key factors and the activities that are relevant to develop a sustainable FLFT in order to gain insights into the possibility of developing, and incorporating a business model framework to support decision making in value creation and value capturing during the research and the scaling up of the system. By this, a long term perspective to accomplish sustainable FLFT service businesses can be achieved.
- Description
- Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Pharmacy, Pharmacy, 2015
- Format
- computer
- Format
- online resource
- Format
- application/pdf
- Format
- 1 online resource (197 pages)
- Format
- Publisher
- Rhodes University
- Publisher
- Faculty of Pharmacy, Pharmacy
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Ngqwala, Nosiphiwe Patience
- Rights
- Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- Rights
- Open Access
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RU Department of Pharmacy
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | NGQWALA-PhD-TR15-335_embargo 2 years.pdf | 13 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |