Composición típica de las aguas residuales domésticas crudas en Guatemala

Abstract

The base of a proper wastewater treatment is the determination of the composition and concentration of the contaminants in the water. From 1974 to 2015, thirty investigations from the Regional School of Sanitary Engineering and Water Resources (ERIS, for its acronym in Spanish), University of San Carlos in Guatemala, had allowed to collect information from the wastewater that is headed to the pilot plant “Ing. Arturo Pazos Sosa”. This information has been used to characterize the domestic wastewater effluents of the country, allowing the design of the units that should be used to treat this kind of water. The statistical analysis of this data shows that the average values of the studied parameters are: temperature 22.6°C, pH 7.44 (U), color 403.7 (CU), 553.6 BOD5 mg/L, COD 422 mg/L, total solids 640.8 mg/L, suspended solids 282.8 mg/L, total Nitrogen 40.5 mg/L, total Phosphorus 11.6 mg/L, 9.7E11 MPN/100 total coliforms, and 6.8E11 MPN/100 fecal coliforms. The relation between BOD5 and COD was also evaluated, showing that the ratio between these two parameters is 0.57. This information should be used as a starting point to determinate and characterize the average composition of the row domestic wastewater produced in Guatemala, and the base to the design of wastewater treatment in the country.