Reduction of waterborne microorganisms in treated domestic wastewater for reuse in agriculture: Comparison between floating media filter and sand filter

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the use of a floating media filter (FMF) to eliminate waterborne microorganism in treated domestic wastewater for reuse in agriculture. A conventional sand filter (SF) was used concurrently to compare treated water quality. The total/fecal coliforms and somatic coliphage were employed as fecal indicators. The result showed that the FMF was fed with 3 times higher infiltration rate (15 m3/m2.h) than that in the SF (5 m3/m2.h), in which both filters gave similar coliform removal at 6 hours operation. The somatic coliphage elimination tended to increase with operational time for the FMF while that of the SF showed decreasing trend. When a 24 hour continuous operation was applied for the FMF, it showed better removal of somatic coliphage (78%), fecal coliforms (60%) and total coliforms (56%) than that of 6 hour operation. In conclusion, the FMF gave better performance than the SF did by producing a good quality of treated water for agriculture in terms of waterborne microorganisms including turbidity and suspended solids.