BALWOIS_2012

BALWOIS 2012 - Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia - 28 May, 2 June 2012 1
Effective Microorganisms used in Domestic Effluent Treatment System
Doraipandian Kannan*, Sindhu Vaishnavi Kumar
Department of Botany, Thiagarajar College, Tamil Nadu, India
*dekan_c@rediffmail.com
Abstract
Commercially available culture of microorganisms, comprising of 80 different microbial species with the major
groups of Lactobacillus, photosynthetic bacteria, yeast and ray fungi was used in the recycling of domestic
effluent of grey water collected at Thiagarajar College Campus, Madurai, South India. Effective
microorganisms were applied after fermenting the commercial culture as the extended form, using jaggery
solution for the nutrient source and sodium aluminium silicate with the trade name of zeolite as the base to
effect the microbial population growth. These fermented form of bokashi balls were applied in the plant at the
primary treatment stage. Monitoring and water quality analysis revealed that microbial treatment
considerably reduced the BOD rate as the applied microbial culture has the ability to survive and functions
both at the aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Total soluble solids (TDS), alkalinity were also had a profound
beneficial effect in the treatment process.
The microbes antagonized Escherichia coli bacteria population which was known from the reduced
population of colic bacteria, following treatment using EM. Unlike adding chlorine in the detoxification
process usually done in the conventional methods, effective microorganisms application is a kind of
bioremediation process and its use becomes to an ecofriendly nature and the water treatment has maximum
sustainable benefits over the chemical process of treatment. Further applying the EM treated water for the
safe land-filling and irrigation offers improving the plant growth, crop productivity and hence an enormous
scope is prevalant from the present study.
Introduction
Water pollution management has been importantly concerned and efforts are taken as one of the important
management practices, by several countries in the past three decades (Sundaravadivel and Vigneswaran,
2007). Domestic wastewater from most of the originating points in rural and urban systems in India are
discharged, without treatment (Anonymous, 2005), except in few municipal and corporations of some cities.
This poor quality water discharge, eventually causes degradation of surface and aquifer water quality. Since,
water quality determines the functioning of ecosystem (Kannan and Arun Raja, 2010) and therefore it is of
paramount important to be reclaimed.
Sewage effluent carries all types of potentially dangerous load of heavy metals, chemical contaminants,
parasites and microbial pathogens. Hence the impacts of sewage water on human society are severe, due to
the continuous land-filling of untreated raw sewage. World Health Organization estimates about 80 percent
of diseases affected to mankind are waterborne (WHO, 1989), for which most of the reasons are attributed to
the effect of sewage effluent, which poses severe threat to public health (Howard et al., 2004). However,
recycling of sewage effluent is inevitable (Greenway, 2005) to meet out the demand for water, since it is an
essential commodity, besides it forms the life line of every living being. Reusing of water accomplishes and
also influences water availability and preventing pollution in terrestrial and wetlands (Asando, 1998).
Chemical treatment and bioremediation processes are available to recycle the sewage effluent collected in
constructed treatment wetlands. Utilization of biotic organisms to purify the wastewater for the purpose of
recycling process is termed as bioremediation. For the objective of achieving sustainable environment and
cost-effectiveness (van der Steen et al., 1998), bioremediation procedure is safe to adopt in effluent;
especially in domestic wastewater treatment.
Wastewater treatment with algae has been utilized for municipal sewage treatment (Dodd, 1980; Oswald.
1992; Valderrama, et al., 2002). Another method is phytoremediation, using macrophyta at individual

households and small community level was found to be effective in renovating the sewage water (Qadir and
Oster, 2002). Application of effective microorganisms (EM) is found so effective in cleaning water and found
its place in water treatments (Higa and Chinen, 1998). Microorganisms have profuse decomposition ability
over organic wastes and since EM is a consortium of about 80 different microbial species and in domestic
wastewater treatment process, the decomposed organic substances are utilized for the further proliferation if
EM in the system (Szynanski and Patterson, 2003). The present work was aimed to analyse the water
quality in terms of physico-chemical and biological variables, upon EM application to the sewage treatment
plant, where the domestic wastewater has been purified for the safe land-filling purpose.
Materials and Methods
Experimental Area
The present study was conducted at the domestic sewage treatment plant (STP) of Thiagarajar College,
Madurai, southern India (latitude 9º 55’ N; longitude 10º 78’ E). Within the campus area, Daily an average of
50,000 liters of grey water, excluding the toilet waste was discharged mainly from the students’ hostels,
kitchen, mess and canteen.
Description on the STP
The STP of the experimental site is a constructed treatment wetland and the diagrammatic representation is
illustrated in Figure 1. It has an inflow collection tank, where primary treatment and the addition of EM were
done, pumped into the aeration tank. Aeration is done using one 10HP mechanical air compressor. Then
the aerated water is collected for settling and thus water purification is done in the STP and the safe land
filling is done through irrigating the purified water for gardening purpose.
Effective Microorganism (EM) treatment process
Extended EM i.e., the fermented form of the EM was prepared by dissolving 1 liter of commercial grade
inactive EM solution in jiggery (country sugar) solution at a ratio of 1:19, by dissolving 1 kg jiggery in 19 liters
of water. The prepared solution mixture was kept air-tight in a plastic can and kept in darkness for a week,
with the occasional release of air from the solution. This prepared solution is termed as extended EM.
In the next step, EM Bokashi (Bokashi: Fermented) was prepared by a thorough mixing of 1 liter of extended
EM with 4 Kg. of commercial grade zeolite (sodium aluminium silicate). The mixture was made into evenly
moist condition and shaped into spherical ball like structure; each weighed about 100g. Each bokashi ball
was rolled in a teak leaf and kept in a tightly closed plastic container, kept in a dark room for 5 days to
facilitate fermentation and for proliferation of EM at this condition.
EM Bokashi was used in the domestic sewage treatment and on a daily basis, only one EM bokashi ball was
put into the domestic effluent inflow tank. It is expected that the applied EM will go all along the treatment
process, by its ability to proliferate both under aerobic and anaerobic condition.
Water sampling and analysis
Water samples were collected between 8 and 10 am on a monthly interval for 5 months (September 2011 to
January 2012). Samples were collected at inflow point, where EM bokashi is added; ii) mechanical aeration
tank and iii) at the downstream processing outflow point of the STP of Thiagarajar College, Madurai.
Samples were collected in autoclaved 2 liter sample bottles and packed in insulated coolers and brought to
the laboratory for further analysis.
Physico-chemical analysis
Physicochemical determinations were done for the collected water samples and for the attributes of pH,
acidity, alkalinity, chloride, total hardness, total dissolved solids, dissolved oxygen. All these analysis were
performed using standard methodology (APHA, 1989).
Microbial analysis
Presumptive test for the coliform was done by taking 10 ml volume of the 1x 10
5
solution of water sample
from the respective sampling points were inoculated in the fermentation tubes with a 3 ml. volume Durham

vial in lactose broth. The inoculated tubes were incubated for 48h at 37ºC. Presence of gas and acid were
confirmed in the volumetric change from the initial level, which is the proportional release of gaseous
substances from the microbial population present in the sample. The presumptive test for fecal coliforms was
performed, as a confirmatory test with azide dextrose broth to which EMB methylene blue (20mg/l) was
added as a pH indicator. The same amounts of diluted sample were inoculated as for the coliforms and they
were incubated at 37ºC for 48h.
Enumeration of individual bacterial colony count was done using MPN test. Nutrient agar was used as the
medium for bacterial growth analysis and PDA medium was used as the medium for fungal growth analysis.
Statistical analysis
Data on water quality attributes of water samples collected from various points were subjected to the analysis
of least significant differences using Student-Newman-Keuls (SNK) test. SPSS-PC programme was used to
compute the data for the above analysis.
Results and Discussion
The treatment process in the recycling of domestic wastewater, using EM showed a profound effect by
reducing the toxic levels of the analysed water quality attributes considerably. Acidity, alkalinity, total
hardness, total dissolved solids, and BOD levels had more than 40% reduction over the inflow effluent
(Figure 2) and statistical significance was observed between the initial and post-treatment water samples. It
further indicates that EM oxidizes the organic ingredients considerably and further facilitates the lowering of
TDS and BOD levels. The present study results are in agreement with the study, reported for activated
sludge treatment, used in wastewater recycling (Howard et al., 2004). The reduction in the BOD (Figure 2) of
the present study indicates that the effective microorganisms oxidizing the organic substances in the
treatment process.
A little rate of reduction in alkalinity, pH, chloride and total hardness, with no significant statistical difference
was observed between the samples, collected from the inflow point and at the downstream treatment process
which showed the treatment process has only a moderate effect. These factors are highly dependent upon
the aquifer water quality, which can seldom alter using this kind of treatment.
Chloride has indirectly been considered as the indicator of fecal coliform contamination; however this view
could not be related, since chlorides are increasingly present in naturally available water resources (Garcia
and Crehuet, 1999).
The results of the present study in relation to microbial population in the domestic sewage treatment is
comparable with the findings of the previous works with the bioremediation process using algae (Valderrama
et al., 2002) and macrophytic vegetation (Brix, 1997). It was noted further that the effective microorganisms
application, along with the treatment process was able to suppress gas production by E. coli (Plate 1). This
finding is in agreement with the earlier report of Feng and Hartman (1982) in the enumeration of colic
bacteria.
The raw water samples show a high content of Staphylococcus aureus with a mean MPN of 14 x 10
6
/ml.
However treatment process control the population to a greater extent (Table 1). Aspergillus flavus and
Penicillium fungus has also considerably reduced by this domestic effluent treatment process. Therefore, the
effective microorganisms use in the domestic wastewater treatment could efficiently remove the microbial
pathogen. However the reports of Kinde et al., (1997) and Howard et al., (2004) in their study contradicted
with the present study results depicted that the activated sludge process of sewage water treatment did not
show the control over the pathogenic microorganisms.
Conclusion and Future Directions
Domestic wastewater treatment plant of bioremediation approach by using a consortium of effective
microorganism found effective in terms of physicochemical and biological attributes. However, only the

selected physical, chemical and biological indicators were used in this study and hence, the study is limited to
certain extent of detection. There are ample scopes available, to extend the study which is needed by
analyzing more variables to ascertain a wide range of pollution indicators for the sustainable water recycling
management, an important prerequisite to the mankind.
Acknowledgements
The work is humbly dedicated to Amma, Mata Amritananda Mayi Devi, The Divine Mother. The authors are
grateful to the Management of Thiagarajar College for extending the infrastructure facilities and financial
support, to carry out the work. Mr. S. Kulandivelu, faculty of Microbiology, Thiagarajar College, Madurai,
India was gratefully acknowledged for his help in the microbial analysis. Br. EM Arunji @ Oscar Evaldson
and Mr. Chandrasekaram Pillai, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Deemed University, Coimbatore, India are
gratefully acknowledged for extended their help in the technical know-how on EM application to the
wastewater treatment.
References
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wastewater. 17
th
ed., Washington (DC). American Public Health Association
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quinicos (cited in Howard et al., 2004), Editorial Universitad de Granade, pp. 85-114.
Gloaguen, T.V., Forti, M.C., Lucas, Y., Montes, C.R., Goncalves, R.A.B., Herpin, U and Melfi, A.J. 2007. Soil
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Greenway, M. 2005. The role of constructed wetlands in secondary efﬂuent treatment and water reuse in
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Higa, T. and Chinen, N. 1998. EM Treatement of odor, wastewater and environmental problems, College of
Agriculture, University of Ryukyas, Okinawa, Japan.
Howard, E. Espigares, P. Lardelli, J. L. Martín and M. Espigares, 2004. Evaluation of microbiological and
physicochemical indicators for wastewater treatment, Environmental Toxicology, 19: 241-249.
Kannan, D. and Arun Raja, T. 2010. Vegetation And Diatoms Diversity Analysis In The Ponds With
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D., Tarbell, R., Houghes, E. 1977. Prevalence of Solmonella in municipal sewage – treatment plant
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Sundaravadivel, M. and Vigenswaran, S. 2007. Constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment, In:
Wastewater recyle, reuse and reclamation. Encyclopedia of Life Support, Vol-I, pp.21.
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Plate 1: Microbiological evaluation in domestic effluent samples, collected from STP, Thiagarajar College,
Madurai. A) and B) Test for Colic bacterial activity and population; Water samples inoculated for C) Bacterial
and D) Fungal enumeration.
A
B
C
D

Sewage Collection Tank
(13 ft x 13 ft x 10 ft)
Treated Water Storage Tank
(11ftx13ftx10ft)
Outflow of
reclaimed
water for
land-filling
ll
Figure 1: Flow chart of sewage treatment plant functioning in Thiagarajar College, Madurai, India
Sewage inflow Collection
Tank
(13 ft x 13 ft x 10 ft)
Aeration Tank
(14 ft x 14.5 ft x 10 ft)
Feed
pump
Air
Compressor

0
20
40
60
80
100
120
1 2 3
A
c
id
ity
c
o
n
te
n
t
(m
g
/l)
Sampling point
ACIDITY
Figure 2: Mean values of 5 months physico-chemical attributes of water samples, collected at three different
points of STP. Standard errors of the mean are shown as vertical bars (n=5). Different letters indicate
significant differences between species at p<0.05 level based on Student-Newman-Keuls test.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
1 2 3
A
lk
a
lin
ity
c
o
n
te
n
t
(m
g
/l)
Sampling point
ALKALINITY
7.2
7.4
7.6
7.8
8
8.2
8.4
8.6
8.8
9
1 2 3
Sampling point
pH
p
H
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
1 2 3
Sampling point
CHLORIDE
C
h
lo
rid
e
m
g/l
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
1 2 3
Sampling point
TOTAL HARDNESS
To
tal

h
ard
n
e
ss
m
g/l
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1 2 3
Sampling point
TOTAL DISSOLVED
SOLIDS
To
tal
d
isso
lve
d

so
lid
s

m
g/l
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1 2 3
Sampling point
BIOLOGICAL
OXYGEN
DEMAND
B
io
lo
gical
o
xyge
n

d
e
m
an
d

m
g/l
a
a a
a
a
b
a
a
a
a
a a
aaa
a
a
b
a

Table 1: Enumeration of microbial organisms at three different collection points of STP in Thiagarajar
College, Madurai
Organism Sampling point I
No./ml in 1x 10
5
dilution
Sampling point II
No./ml in 1x 10
5
dilution
Sampling point III
No./ml in 1x 10
5
dilution
Staphylococcus aureus
(bacteria)
14 13 1
Aspergillus fulvus,
Penicillium (fungus)
5 3 2

BALWOIS_2012

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