Chemical composition, nutrient-balancing and biological treatment of hand washing greywater.

ABSTRACT: On-site biological hand washing water treatment can improve global access to safe hand washing water, but requires a thorough understanding of the chemical composition of the water to be treated, and an effective treatment strategy. This study first presents a detailed characterization of the individual inputs to hand washing water. We demonstrate (i) that soap is likely the most significant input in hand washing water, representing ∼90% of mass loading, and (ii) that inputs to hand washing water have low concentrations of biologically-essential macro- and micro-nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, copper, zinc, molybdenum and cobalt) with respect to carbon, which may impair biological carbon removal. This study next formulates a recipe that recreates a representative composition of

SUBMITTER: Ziemba C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6176911 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature