aBSTRACt
Herbal
pharmaceuticals have gained enough popularity in recent times due to their
minimal effects, low cost, safety, efficacy and cultural acceptability compared
to allopathic medicines. Being herbal in nature, the effluent from the herbal
pharmaceutical industry was not considered as toxic. But the wastewater
generated from these industries has high COD and BOD and are toxic due to the
presence of many plant alkaloids, organic solvents, alcohol etc. Hence they
cannot be discharged into the water bodies without proper treatment.
The
effect of using algae, Azolla
filiculoides in treatment of herbal pharmaceutical wastewater was studied.
The factors which affect the treatment efficiency such as dosage of algae, pH,
treatment period and concentration of wastewater were optimized. The algal
treated wastewater was further subjected to a secondary treatment using a filtration
unit. The effluent after algal treatment and
that after secondary treatment were subjected to bio-assay test using
freshwater prawns, Macrobrachium
rosenbergii. The results were analysed using Trimmed Spearman Karber method
to determine the LC50 values.
The
algal treatment is efficient in reducing BOD, COD, chlorides, sulphates,
phosphates and nitrate content and turbidity removal. But the toxicity analysis
reveals that further secondary treatment is required to remove the toxicity of
the wastewater. The effluent from the filtration unit showed positive results
in toxicity analysis indicating that it is an efficient method for removal of
toxicity of herbal pharmaceutical wastewater.
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