Use of Chemical and Biological Agents to Improve Water Quality of Effluent Discharge from Abattoirs

Title
Use of Chemical and Biological Agents to Improve Water Quality of Effluent Discharge from Abattoirs
Publication Date
2004
Author(s)
Goopy, John Patrick
Murray, P J
Lisle, Andrew
Al Jassim, R A M
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Asian-Australasian Association of Animal Production Societies
Place of publication
Republic of Korea
UNE publication id
une:5927
Abstract
Intensive animal industries create large volumes of nutrient rich effluent which, if untreated, has the potential for substantial environmental degradation and to recover valuable nutrients that would otherwise be lost. Members of the family 'Lemnaceae' are widely used in lagoon systems, to achieve inexpensive and efficient remediation of effluent. Only limited research has been conducted into their growth in highly eutrophic media and there has been little done to systematically distinguish between different types of media. This study examined the growth characteristics of duckweed in abattoir effluent and explored possible ways of ameliorating the inhibitory factors to growth on this medium. A series of pot trials was conducted to test the tolerance of duckweed to abattoir effluent partially remediated by a sojourn in anaerobic fermentation ponds, both in its unmodified form and after the addition of acid to manipulate pH, and the addition of bentonite . Unmodified abattoir effluent was highly toxic to duckweed, even at dilutions of 3: 1. Duckweed remained viable and grew sub-optimally in simplified media with total ammonia nitrogen (TAN) concentrations of up to 100 mg/L. Duckweed grew vigorously in effluent diluted 1:4 v/v, containing 56 mg TAN /L when modified by addition of acid (to decrease pH to 7) and bentonite at 0.5%. The results of this study suggest that bentonite plays an important role in modifying the toxicity of abattoir effluent to duckweed.
Link
Citation
Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences, 17(1), p. 137-145
ISSN
1976-5517
1011-2367
Start page
137
End page
145

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