Abstract:
Direct discharge of untreated hospital wastewater (HWW) can create severe environmental impacts. Hence,
the study focuses on assessing the performance of an existing treatment plant, while determining the most
suitable filter material from five different alluvial clays to remove total suspended solids (TSS) and total
dissolved solids (TSS) in HWW and investigate a hospital that does not have a treatment plant to elaborate
the requirement of a treatment plant. Wastewaters from Provincial General Hospital (PGH, n=5) and Base
Hospital (BHTB, n=4) were collected weekly over three weeks (total n=27) where physical (n=4), chemical
(n=12) and biological (n=1) parameters were measured. The clays were treated with HWW, and the
adsorption of TSS and TDS to clay was determined. The water quality after the trickling filter in PGH
shows a clear drop for BOD5, TSS, and pH. Maximum values for BOD5, COD, TSS, and PO4
3- of the
waters were 108, 290, 904, and 16.39 mg/L, respectively, and are much higher than the National
Environmental Act (CEA) standards. In BHTB, all discharged water outlets are open to the environment,
and the BOD5, PO4
3-
and NO3
- of discharged water varies within 8 - 98, 3.77 - 8.16, and 0.80 - 14.60 mg/L
and are higher than CEA standards. The treatment plant at PGH is unsatisfactory to meet the increasing
capacity requirements, thus needs improvements, and a treatment plant is required for BHTB. The highest
removal of TSS was achieved using illite clay within two weeks, and the removal percentage is 96% while
it was showing removal of Benzidine dihydrochloride (C12H12N2.2HCl), Neodymium titanium oxide
(Nd2Ti2O7), Bismuth selenide (Bi2Se3) and Iron fluoride (FeF3) which are found to be in HWW.
