The Effectiveness of EM4 Addition into Anaerob-Aerob Biofilter in the Processing of Wastewater at Hasanuddin University Hospital, Makassar Indonesia

Abstract

Hospital waste water is a potential environmental pollutant because it contains high organic compounds, and other chemical compounds and pathogenic microorganisms, and if released to the environment without prior treatment will affect the quality of the environment. This Study aims to find out the effectiveness of EM₄ addition on biofilter anaerob-aerob to reduce BOD, COD, TSS, PO₄, NH₃ and MPN Coliform levels from wastewater at Hasanuddin University Hospital. The research was a pra-experimental study with pretest-posttest design. It was conducted in some steps including literature review, preliminary study, and main study (creating the biofilter anaerob-aerob reaktor). The basic principle of biofilter is to use of microorganism with a mobile process in certain mediun to produce biofilm. In normal condition, it needs one month (30 days) for the biofilm to degrade oranic compounds and pollutants in wastewater. The results reveal that after 18 days, there was a change in the pollutant levels. The decrease of BOD level reached 91,22% (322,65 mg/l to 28,30 mg/l) and decrease of TSS levels reached 90.05% (48.82 mg/l to 4.86 mg/l), which fulfilled the allowed maximum level as the Regulation of the South Sulawesi Governor No. 69/ 2010. Furthermore, while the reduction percentages were relatively high, the level of COD, PO₄, NH₃ and MPN Coli form in the wastewater had not fulfilled the quality standard. It concluded that the addition of EM₄ was able to generate the formation of biofilm so that the efficiency of biofilters can increase in terms of time needed.