Physicochemical Characteristics and Biodegradation of Pharmaceutical Effluent

Pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) industries suffer inadequate effluent treatment due to the presence of recalcitrant substances, insufficient carbon source and nutrients. Biodegradation is the ability of microorganisms to metabolize pollutants in soil, sediment and water environment. There is great awareness in the positive impact that microorganisms play in protecting environmental and human health. A large number of pre treatment systems are employed to remove these pollutants to prevent a host of problems that may arise in the biological process thereby reducing the efficiency of the treatment plant. Pharmaceutical effluent collected was characterized for their pollution characteristic and resultant analysis showed that the total suspended solid (TSS) and total dissolve solid (TDS) were 150.4 and 120.7 mg/l respectively while biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and Chemical oxygen demand (COD) were 1720 and 5680 mg/l respectively. These values are high when compared to World Health Organization maximum permissible limits (Chikogu et al., 2012).Initial treatment of this effluent with selected organisms yielded slight reduction in the solid concentration, BOD and COD, hence optimization of biodegradation of the selected organisms. Optimization of biodegradation with 2% carbon source and nitrogen respectively showed improved biodegradation of pharmaceutical effluent with maltose showing 78.5% TDS reduction, cassava starch 95.8% BOD and 97% COD reduction respectively in Saccharamyces cerevisea treated pharmaceutical effluent. Similarly yeast extract was best utilized by Saccharamyces cerevisea with 99% BOD, 82 % TDS reduction and 90.5% growth in the treated effluent while it reduced COD to 98.2% in Pseudomonas aeruginosa treated pharmaceutical effluent. However optimization of biodegradation with carbon and nitrogen sources was not properly utilized in Aspergillus niger treated effluent.