International Journal of Advanced in Management, Technology and Engineering Sciences ISSN NO : 2249-7455

DAIRY WASTEWATER TREATMENT BY VERMIFILTRATION

RIBA GYADIa,*, TASSO DURIa, SHEFALI HEBLIKARa, TEJASVI CHETTYa,
G.C.BELLADb
a
Under Graduate Student, Department Of Civil Engineering, B.V.Bhoomaraddi College Of Engineering And Technology Hubli, Karanataka,
India, *Email: ribajgyadi@gmail.com (Corresponding Author)
b
Associate Professor, Department Of Civil Engineering, B.V.Bhoomaraddi College Of Engineering And Technology Hubli, Karanataka, India,
Email: gcbellad@bvb.edu

ABSTRACT
Dairy industries discharge wastewater which is characterized by high BOD5, COD and inorganic contents. Disposal of untreated dairy
wastewater is rapidly becoming a major economic and social problem faced by the dairy processing industries. In the present study, Dairy
wastewater treatment by Vermifiltration has been attempted in laboratory. The dairy wastewater was applied at different hydraulic loading rates
to vermifilter bed inoculated with Eisenia Fetida earthworm. The studies indicate that the vermifiltration process can be applied for treating
dairy wastewater to reduce BOD5, COD and Turbidity with an efficiencies of 96%, 94.7% & 95.4% respectively at an optimized hydraulic
loading of 104 L/m2/day for the Garden soil. Removal efficiencies of 85.4%, 90% & 87% respectively for BOD5, COD and Turbidity for Black
Cotton soil and saw dust at an optimized hydraulic loading rate of 88L/m2/day. The treated wastewater at optimum hydraulic loading is found to
be suitable for irrigation purposes.

Keywords: Dairy wastewater, Vermifiltration, Eisenia Fetida earthworm, Optimized hydraulic loading rate, Garden and Black Cotton
soil.

I. INTRODUCTION
Milk, since ancient time has been used by human race for many purposes like feeding, sweets, bathing, cosmetics etc. but during those
times the manufacturing process of all the products from the milk was in small quantities. During the course of time, human race started
developing in every way possible, this led to the discovering of many formulae, and chemicals, technologies etc., and ultimately it affected all
the fields of engineering and medical. When the population started increasing, the demand of goods in the market also started to increase and
milk, which has versatile properties, has been used to produce many products from food to cosmetics got drastically increased which led to the
formation of huge dairy industries. To meet the demands of the market, the industries started using chemicals to increase the life span of the
products and hence the harmful wastewater started producing from the industries in huge quantities. Since the inception of dairy industries many
wastewater treatment plants had been introduced. The conventional wastewater treatment methods used for treating dairy wastewater include
Activated Sludge Process, Trickling filters etc. although good BOD5, COD removal efficiencies can be achieved by conventional treatment
methods, but they require high investment and maintenance. Also, large quantity of sludge is obtained during the treatment process which
requires proper handling and disposal, thereby increasing the cost of treatment.
Vermifiltration is an effective, low cost and environment friendly process of treating the wastewater with the help of earthworms and
other micro-organisms. The idea of vermifiltration has been derived from vermicomposting which is the treatment of the solid wastes by the
earthworms. Generally, the common species of earthworm employed for Vermifiltration are Eiseniafetida, Eudriluseuginea, Lumbricusrebellus
(Arora et al., 2015). The mechanism on which the vermifiltration works is that the earthworms act as bio-filters. They feed on the trapped
organic matter on the soil bed present in the sewage and along with the aid of micro-organisms (Toyota et al, 2000) considerably improves the
quality of the water by bringing down the values of BOD5, COD, Turbidity etc.,(Arora et al, 2015) without any skilled supervision and forming
any sludge and odour.

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International Journal of Advanced in Management, Technology and Engineering Sciences ISSN NO : 2249-7455

II. MATERIALS AND METHODS

The dairy wastewater under study was collected from Dharwad Milk Union, Dharwad. The industry generates an average of 0.2 MLD
of wastewater from all the processing units which include milk receiving section, curd section, paneer section, lassi and butter milk section and
packaging section. Experiments were conducted to explore the use of vermifiltration technology for treating dairy wastewater.

A. Initial parameters

Sl.No Characteristic Garden soil Black

. bed cotton soil
bed
1 BOD5 ( mg/L) 1520 1680

2 COD (mg/L) 2420 2500

3 Turbidity (NTU) 110 100

4 pH 8-10 8-10

Table (1): Characteristics of untreated dairy wastewater

B. Earthworm
Species Eisenia fetida was employed in the treatment of dairy wastewater. Initially 170 number (i.e. approximately 80 gm) of adult earthworm
procured from University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad (Bhise et al., 2015) were used in the lab-scale reactor setup. Earthworms were
placed in the soil bed along with cow dung and an acclimation period of one week was given prior to testing. Optimum temperature of 27oC and
minimum moisture content of 80% (Arora et al., 2014) was maintained in the soil bed.
C. Reactor setup
The lab-scale vermifiltration reactor setup is shown in Fig. (1). It consisted of a PVC wastewater storage tank of 25 L capacity kept at a height of
1.15 m above vermifiltration unit. The supply of dairy wastewater from storage tank to vermibed was controlled by 2 valves. A PVC pipe of
diameter 1.27 cm (0.5) provided with 1 mm holes was used to distribute wastewater on the vermibed. The cylindrical vermifiltration tank was
40 cm in diameter and 65 cm in depth. An outlet was provided to collect the filtered wastewater. The total depth of filter bed was 45 cm,
consisting of 10 cm soil bed with earthworms, 10 cm sand bed and 25 cm gravel bed. A mesh was provided at the interface of soil bed and sand
bed in order to prevent the entry of earthworms in sand bed.
D. Vermifilter bed
Soil bed constituted the top layer of the reactor setup. Experimentation was carried out for two different soil beds- garden soil (soil used for
gardening in college campus) bed and a mixture of black cotton soil and saw dust. Garden soil bed consisted of garden soil and cow dung mixed
in the ratio of 3:1. Cow dung was mixed to give as initial food for acclimation period and for the second bed black cotton soil and saw dust was
mixed in the ratio of 1: 0.1 (Bhise et al., 2015). Saw dust was given to make the movement of earthworm easy. The depth of both the soil beds
was kept 10 cm. The suitability of soil beds in vermifiltration of dairy wastewater was studied by evaluating their performance with respect to
wastewater treatment and sustenance of earthworms.

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International Journal of Advanced in Management, Technology and Engineering Sciences ISSN NO : 2249-7455

Figure (1): Vermifiltration reactor setup.

E. Vermifiltration process
The tests were conducted on different hydraulic loading rates ranging from 24 L/m2/day (3 L/day) to 136 L/m2/day (17 L/day). The range of
hydraulic loading which showed maximum removal percentage of BOD5, COD and turbidity was taken as the optimized hydraulic loading range
for that bed.

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

A. Garden soil bed

Table (2): Results of the BOD5, COD and turbidity percentage removals for garden soil bed.

Hydraulic loading BOD5 After BOD5 % COD COD % Turbidity Turbidity %

(L/m2/day) treatment removal After treatment removal After removal
(mg/L) (mg/L) treatment
(NTU)
24 222 85.4 484 80 19 82.6
40 172 88.7 327 86.5 18 84
56 147 90.3 290 88 13 88
72 122 92 242 90 12 89
88 94 93.8 186 92.3 7 93.6
104 61 96 128 94.7 5 95.4
120 84 94.5 194 92 12 89
136 190 87.5 400 83.5 14 87

At low hydraulic loading, due to the less availability of organic solids for earthworms, the food by organism ratio was found to be low. This
decreased the working efficiency of earthworms and as a result, BOD5, COD and turbidity removal was low. Similarly when the hydraulic
loading was high, due to excess availability of organic solids, food by organism ratio was found to be high. This led to the presence of unfed
organic particles in the effluent which reduced the BOD5, COD and turbidity removal efficiency of the bed. At 104 L/m2/day the BOD5, COD
and turbidity % removal was maximum i.e., 96%, 94.7% & 95.4 % respectively. This may be due to for a range of hydraulic loading in between
the minimum and maximum values, earthworms received the optimum quantity of food. This range of optimized hydraulic loading marks the
highest removal of BOD5, COD and turbidity. Therefore, the optimized hydraulic range was in between 88 to 120 L/m2/day. The effluent from
the vermifiltration was odour less and slightly brownish in color. This may have been due to the minerals present inside the garden soil which
was responsible for the formation of color in the effluent. The pH of effluent was neutral.

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International Journal of Advanced in Management, Technology and Engineering Sciences ISSN NO : 2249-7455

B. Black cotton soil bed

Table (3): Results of the BOD5, COD and turbidity percentage removals for black cotton soil bed.

Hydraulic BOD5 after BOD5 % COD after COD % Turbidity Turbidity %

loading(L/m2/day) treatment removal treatment removal after removal
(mg/L) (mg/L) treatment
(NTU)
72 454 73 850 66 15 85
88 245 85.4 250 90 13 87
104 655 61 725 71 14 86
120 706 58 1000 60 15 85

The reasons behind the minimum and maximum removal of BOD5, COD and turbidity at both low & high and optimum hydraulic loading were
same as for the garden soil bed respectively. But in case of black cotton soil bed, the removal efficiencies were lower compared to garden soil
bed. This may be due to the cohesive nature of the black cotton soil which prevents the free movement of earthworms inside the soil bed and
hence, decreasing the BOD5, COD and turbidity % removal.
At 88 L/m2/day the BOD5, COD and turbidity % removal was maximum i.e., 85.4%, 90% & 87 % respectively. Therefore, the optimized
hydraulic range was in between 72 to 104 L/m2/day. The effluent from the vermifiltration was odourfree and had a mild yellow colour. The pH
of effluent was neutral.

IV. CONCLUSION
Black cotton soil and saw dust mixture bed was found to be less efficient for the vermifiltration process as compared to the garden soil
bed. This may be due to large specific surface area and its bulkiness of the garden soil which allows the earthworms to move freely and consume
organic wastes as much as possible and in case of Black cotton soil and saw dust mixture bed, the presence of the fine clay particles makes it
swell excessively when wet and shrink excessively when dry resulting in the formation of very hard soil mass. The process is found to be odour
free with no sludge formation. The vermifiltered water was compared with the irrigation water standards and was found suitable to be used for
irrigation (IS: 2490, Part-I-1981).

References
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