Abstract:
Waste stabilization ponds are sanitation technologies that consist of open basins that use natural processes to treat domestic wastewater and sludge, as well as animal or industrial wastes. The main objective of this thesis work is to design and evaluate the efficiency of stabilization pond for Bahir Dar University (BiT campus) based on the population size and by constructing a pilot plant. The university discharges waste directly to the environment with partial treatment. In order to treat the remaining waste; constructing and using better technologies is necessary. Stabilization pond uses a biological system which involves an interaction between bacteria, algae and sun light energy. Mostly stabilization pond consists anaerobic, facultative and maturation ponds in series or parallel. In an anaerobic pond, the organic matter settles and anaerobic bacteria decompose organic matter. In facultative pond, the remaining organic matters decompose by aerobic bacteria through respiration and gives carbon dioxide for the algae. The algae use sun light energy, and take carbon dioxide from the bacteria and gives oxygen by the process of photosynthesis, this symbiotic relationship continuous as, waste exists. Maturation pond is needed to remove pathogens. At the end of maturation pond some suspended algae and dead pathogens will remain, to overcome this problem, as a research gap trickling filter were used at the end of maturation pond to remove this suspended algae and dead pathogenic matter. The temperature and duration of sun light in tropical countries offer an excellent opportunity for high efficiency stabilization pond water-cleaning system. This technology is important due to construction and operation simplicity, cost effectiveness, low maintenance, low energy requirements, easily adaptive for upgrading and high efficiency. Bahir Dar is a place in Ethiopia which is in tropical zone with good availability of sun light energy throughout the year. Using this technology is more efficient and economical. Based on the design the area of the anaerobic, facultative, maturation ponds and trickling filter is 6.019, 54.172, 253.022 & 10.052 m2 respectively. The performance (removal efficiency) in terms of BOD5, COD, TSS, coliform and turbidity at pilot scale was 95.6%, 89.9%, 91.5%, 99.9%and 98.3% respectively. And the final effluent quality of the treated water in terms of BOD5, COD, TSS, coliform and Turbidity was 18 mg/l, 54.5 mg/l, 29 mg/l, 330 CFU, and 8.5 FTU respectively.