Assessment of purifying performance of a wastewater filtration basin - Case study
The local authority of the hydraulic sector in the region of Tizi Ouzou (Algeria) has undertaken a vast programme of filtering basins in 1996. After two decades of operation of these structures, it seemed necessary to evaluate their feedback. The objective of this study is to test the efficiency of this wastewater purifying system by analyzing a sample filtration basin from this region. The idea was to determine the effluent characteristics at the inlet and outlet of the basin, based on the analysis of six parameters which are the temperature, turbidity, pH, suspended matter, chemical oxygen demand (COD), and five-day biological oxygen demand (BOD5). A daily monitoring of these parameters was performed for which an experimental protocol with a rigorous and consistent approach for the major steps has been developed. The results showed that we were able to assess the purification performance of the filtration basin which is analyzed with respect to the elimination rate of water pollution. These results enabled us to suggest the dimensioning and design of a wastewater treatment structure combining a filtration basin and a sedimentation basin to obtain a better purification performance.