Investigation on the Urban Grey Water Treatment Using a Cost-Effective Solar Distillation Still

Mohd Fazly Yusof, Mohd Remy Rozainy Mohd Arif Zainol, Ali Riahi, Nor Azazi Zakaria, Syafiq Shaharuddin, Siti Fairuz Juiani, Norazian Mohamed Noor, Mohd Hafiz Zawawi and Jazaul Ikhsan
Additional contact information
Mohd Fazly Yusof: River Engineering and Urban Drainage Research Centre (REDAC), Universiti Sains Malaysia, Nibong Tebal 14300, Malaysia
Mohd Remy Rozainy Mohd Arif Zainol: River Engineering and Urban Drainage Research Centre (REDAC), Universiti Sains Malaysia, Nibong Tebal 14300, Malaysia
Ali Riahi: River Engineering and Urban Drainage Research Centre (REDAC), Universiti Sains Malaysia, Nibong Tebal 14300, Malaysia
Nor Azazi Zakaria: River Engineering and Urban Drainage Research Centre (REDAC), Universiti Sains Malaysia, Nibong Tebal 14300, Malaysia
Syafiq Shaharuddin: River Engineering and Urban Drainage Research Centre (REDAC), Universiti Sains Malaysia, Nibong Tebal 14300, Malaysia
Siti Fairuz Juiani: River Engineering and Urban Drainage Research Centre (REDAC), Universiti Sains Malaysia, Nibong Tebal 14300, Malaysia
Norazian Mohamed Noor: Faculty of Civil Engineering Technology, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Arau 01000, Malaysia
Mohd Hafiz Zawawi: Department of Civil Engineering, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Kajang 43000, Malaysia
Jazaul Ikhsan: Department of Civil Engineering, Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta 55183, Indonesia

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 15, 1-20

Abstract: Treating urban grey water with physical, chemical, and biological treatment techniques and reusing it as a sustainable non-potable water source has received much attention recently, yet there is a lack of studies regarding it. In this work, a typical slum nearby an urban household area in Malaysia was selected as a source of contaminated grey water which is located on the opposite side of a building site (100°29′ E and 5°7′ N) located in an urban area in a city in the Perak state, namely Parit Buntar, where the total urban grey water was being accumulated. Poor sanitation of that slum was seen to pose various health risks to the public, and hence, the importance of treating its grey water was perceived. Thus, this study was conducted to evaluate the performance of a low-cost double slope passive solar still by treating the grey water from the aforementioned slum, as well as to analyze the quality, quantity, and cost per liter of the produced water. Grey water was collected and filled in the solar still basin at s depth of 1 cm. The cover and basin of the solar still were made from transparent polythene film and black-painted stainless steel trough, respectively, while the frame was made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and the solar still was named PSSG1 abbreviated. PSSG1 was exposed to Malaysia’s climate conditions for several days from 8.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), which was able to produce the maximum amount of water up to 4.11 L/m 2 ·d with the cost per liter/m 2 of only USD 0.0082. Water quality parameters tested showed that water produced from PSSG1 met the standards of the restricted and unrestricted reusable non-potable grey water, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Malaysian class I drinking water standards. It was also found that the PSSG1 with higher average daily basin water temperature produced water with higher quality for the reuse applications and yielded healthier water compared to the water produced by some reported previous grey water treatment techniques. Therefore, the cost-effective PSSG1 can be used as a daily practical alternative for treating low-strength grey water collected from various urban household areas in Malaysia in order to assist pollutants removal from the drained urban grey waters.

Keywords: grey water reuse; triangular-shaped solar distiller; polythene film cover; economical potable water production (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/15/9452/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/15/9452/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:15:p:9452-:d:878100

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().