Performance of an Earthworm-Based Biological Wastewater-Treatment Plant for a Dairy Farm: Case Study
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 144, Issue 1
Abstract
Earthworms have been in existence for approximately 600 million years and have adapted to toxicity. They may help cleaning wastewater by devouring micro-organisms. Although the performance of earthworm-based wastewater-treatment technology is still under investigation, this study contributes some performance data to the investigation process. This study observes the performance in terms of removal efficiency of water quality constituents and energy requirements of an earthworm-based wastewater-treatment plant to treat the effluent from a dairy farm located at the California State University Fresno Agricultural Laboratory. Results show that the nitrogen-based water quality constituents, ammonium nitrogen (NH4), nitrate nitrogen (NO3-N), and total kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), can be removed at higher removal efficiencies (above 90%). The removal efficiencies for biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) are found to be promising, but the removal efficiencies for other water quality constituents [e.g., calcium (Ca), potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), sodium (Na), phosphorus (P), etc.] are found to be poor. In terms of energy consumption, 55% of total energy requirement data show better performance than a baseline study. This study was conducted with a pilot treatment plant. Study findings recommend that additional caution and protocols should be maintained during water quality sampling and other types of data-collection processes.
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Acknowledgments
This research was funded by the Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) Company. Authors acknowledge the support from PG&E. Support from BioFiltro is also acknowledged.
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Information
Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 144 • Issue 1 • January 2018
Copyright
©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 12, 2016
Accepted: Jun 16, 2017
Published online: Oct 26, 2017
Published in print: Jan 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Mar 26, 2018
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