Chemical simulation of greywater

ABSTRACT

Sustainable water resources management attracts considerable attention in today's world. Recycling and reuse of both wastewater and greywater are becoming more attractive. The strategy is to protect ecosystem services by balancing the withdrawal of water and the disposal of wastewater. In the present study, a timely and novel synthetic greywater composition has been proposed with respect to the composition of heavy metals, nutrients and organic matter. The change in water quality of the synthetic greywater due to increasing storage time was monitored to evaluate the stability of the proposed chemical formula. The new greywater is prepared artificially using analytical-grade chemicals to simulate either low (LC) or high (HC) pollutant concentrations. The characteristics of the synthetic greywater were tested (just before starting the experiment, after two days and a week of storage under real weather conditions) and compared to those reported for real greywater. Test results for both synthetic greywater types showed great similarities with the physiochemical properties of published findings concerning real greywater. Furthermore, the synthetic greywater is relatively stable in terms of its characteristics for different storage periods. However, there was a significant (p < .05) reduction in 5-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD₅) for both low (LC) and high (HC) concentrations of greywater after two days of storage with reductions of 62% and 55%, respectively. A significant (p < .05) change was also noted for the reduction (70%) of nitrate–nitrogen (NO₃–N) concerning HC greywater after seven days of storage.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainability
• ecosystem
• greywater
• synthetic greywater
• contamination

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.