Feasibility of Reverse Osmosis (RO) Plant Wastewater for Reuse in Cement Mortar

Abstract

This chapter carried out feasibility of R O plant wastewater for reuse in cement mortar. Municipalities and major cities in the Andha Pradesh, India, selling R O plants treated water to people in residential, commercial, institutes. Most of the people from these areas irrespective of social status are consuming for drinking purpose.  Almost, all these plants are extracting ground water for treatment and Input water treatment efficiency of R O treatment plant is 30 to 35 percent, and 65 to 70 percent water is let out as wastewater.  A total of fourteen water treatment plants were selected randomly in the Narasaraopet municipality region, Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh, India. During water treatment, plants were discharging approximately 1,00,000 L/day as wastewater. Based on the concentrations of constituent’s in wastewater, four typical plants i.e., Narasaraopeta Engineering College (NECWW), Patan Khasim Charitable Trust (PKTWW), MahmadhKhasim Charitable Trust (MKTWW) and Amara (ARWW) were taken in this study.Portland pozzolana cement (PPC)'s performance with regard to its physical and mechanical properties, such as setting times, compressive strength, and flexural strength, was tested in laboratories and compared to control specimens made with distilled water (DW) as the mixing water. No significant change was observed in initial and finial setting time but setting process of selected wastewaters were retarded as compared to that of reference water. Almost, no change was observed in 90 days compressive and flexural strengths in four plants wastewaters specimens compared to that of reference water specimens. XRD technique was employed to locate main hydrate compounds formed in hydration process of cement specimens cast with wastewaters. The change in 3, 7, 28, and 90 days compressive strengths of test specimens made with NECWW, PKTWW, MKTWW and ARWW almost same as that of reference specimens made with DW. Due to presence of bicarbonate in wastewater, it is reacted with calcium hydroxide, product of rection is calcium carbonate but it does not affect on strength development of cement mortar.