Comparação de diferentes sistemas de tratamento biológico de águas residuárias domésticas na produção de efluentes para reúso agrícola

Abstract

The increasing demand for good quality water for use in agriculture and the release of untreated domestic sewage are causes of serious environmental impacts. There are many benefits derived from the reuse of treated sewage in agriculture and various other anthropogenic activities, among them an economy in the use of potable water, the recycling of nutrients and the absence of pathogens. This study evaluated the effectiveness of four systems of post-treatment of UASB effluent, receiving domestic sewage, in terms of sanitary quality for reuse in agriculture and also some economic aspects inherent in this practice. The effluents from an anaerobic filter (AF), a horizontal rock filter (RF), a constructed wetland planted with Juncus species (JCW) and a series of five polishing lagoons (PL) were monitored weekly over a two year period for physico-chemical and microbiological parameters. The results obtained were subjected to three methods of statistical analysis namely: 1) Statistics describing distribution (Box Plots), 2) Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) for a single factor at a significance level of 5% and 3) the GT-2 method for measuring significant differences between treatments. According to the results obtained for the various treatments, effluent COD varied between 60 and 155mg O2 L-1 demonstrating good organic material removal but with no significant differences between the treatments except in the case of the polishing pond series (PL) where values were higher due to an observed high algal biomass concentration. The results obtained for VSS showed the same trends as for COD with good removal efficiency again except in the polishing ponds. The pH values of the effluents ranged between 7.3 and 8.5 with the highest pH observed in the PL due to intense algal photosynthesis. The pH values of all the effluents were within the ideal range for agricultural reuse (6.5 to 8.5) recommended by WHO. The systems removed all helminthes eggs and protozoan cysts. In terms of thermo-tolerant coliforms there was no significant difference in the removal efficiencies between the AF, RF and JCW with final effluent concentrations being suitable for restricted irrigation. The effluent from the PL was suitable for unrestricted irrigation according to the WHO guidelines (TTC <103 cfu/100ml). There was no significant difference between alkalinity in the effluents of the AF, RF and JCW but the PL effluent had the lowest alkalinity. The highest removal of macronutrients (N, P, K), was greatest in the JCW confirming the efficiency of macrophytes in this process. This research demonstrated that the UASB reactor showed good efficiency in terms of solids and organic material removal and of the post-treatment configurations only the PL system was suitable for unrestricted irrigation (WHO, 2006).