Abstract—The present study is aimed to explore the pollution potential of automobile service station wastewater and to treat the same. The wastewater samples were collected from different servicing points of a typical automobile garage and then characterized for parameters like pH, Total solids, Total Suspended Solids, Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) as well as Oil and Grease. A composite sample was also prepared on the basis of wastewater generation pattern. The characterization results revealed that oil and grease and COD were two major pollution parameters of concern. The composite oily wastewater was firstly treated using coagulants like alum, FeSO4 and CaCl2 . The results showed that removal is feasible for initial oil concentration in the range of 300 – 600 mg/L for the alum dose of 100 - 400 mg/L, alum + bentonite dose of 20 - 250 mg/L and FeSO4 dose of 50 - 200 mg/L. Subsequently, treatment of the composite wastewater with acclimated suspended biomass (activated sludge) resulted about 18 – 68% removal efficiency for initial oil and grease concentration of 300 – 600 mg/L under the batch period of 18 – 30 hours.

Index Terms—oily wastewater, automobile service station, treatment, coagulation, activated sludge process.

Debabrata Mazumder is with the Civil Engineering Department, Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur, Howrah – 711 103, West Bengal, India; Phone: 0091-033-2668-4561 (Extn. 654); Fax: 0091-033-2668-4564; e-mail: debabrata@ civil.becs.ac.in).
Somnath Muherjee is with the Civil Engineering Department, Jadavpur University, Kolkata – 700 032, West Bengal, India; e-mail: snm_ju@yahoo.co.in).

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Cite: Debabrata Mazumder and Somnath Mukherjee, "Treatment of Automobile Service Station Wastewater by Coagulation and Activated Sludge Process," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 64-69, 2011.