Investigation of the physicochemical and microbiological quality of brassware effluents: Insight into the charge of heavy metal and pollutants in wastewater from Fez, Morocco

Abstract

This article investigated the effluents from brassware wastewater in the city of Fez, Morocco. Brassware is considered one of the principal economic activities in the region, but its effluents harm the environment and human health because of its heavy metal loading. The objective of this study was to determine the physicochemical, metallic, and microbiological characteristics of the brassware effluents. The degree and nature of the pollution generated by the studied effluents from September to April 2022 were also studied. The samples were collected each month from a brassware company to evaluate the pollution using standard methods: physicochemical parameters, Temperature, pH, electrical conductivity, suspended solids, chemical oxygen demand, biological oxygen demand, sulfates, orthophosphate ions, total Kjeldahl nitrogen, nitrates, nitrites, and ammonium), metals (silver, aluminum, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, nickel and lead), and microbiological, total aerobic microbial bacteria, total coliforms, and fecal coliforms, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus, molds, and yeasts. The results collected during March showed that the studied effluents had a pH = 10.4 ± 0.16, electrical conductivity of 6.93 ± 0.11 mS/cm, suspended solids of 3078.15 ± 121.85 mg/L, a chemical oxygen demand of 680.44 ± 10.84 mg /L and sulfates of 1755.44 ± 21.56 mg/L, which do not correspond to Moroccan rejection standards. The metal analysis showed that the studied effluents exhibited high concentrations of nickel (999.96 ± 0.08 mg/L) and copper (76.48 ± 0.002 mg/L) during this month. Nevertheless, they were characterized by the absence of pathogenic germs. In general, the obtained results showed that these effluents were characterized by monthly variations in values for all the measured parameters. These results provide important information on the negative impact of brassware wastewater on the environment that should motivate municipal water utilities and researchers to find innovative solutions to this problem and protect the receiving environment.

Keywords

• brassware
• organic matter
• heavy metals
• microbiological
• water pollution