Prospects of Effective Microorganisms (EM) in bioremediation of textile industrial wastewater

Existing wastewater treatment systems face several significant challenges. So, the main purpose of this study was to apply an effective technology for these systems especially textile industrial wastewater (TIW). Currently, beneficial microorganisms are gaining widespread adoption. One of them is referred to as Effective Microorganisms (EM). Which is a product in liquid form which consists of many varieties of non-pathogenic microorganisms, which coexistence between aerobic& anaerobic microorganisms. This liquid EM is used to bio remediate TIW. This study evaluates the efficacy of various EM dosages (5, 10, 15, 20 and 25ml / 525ml sample) during different retention times (15 and 35 days) along the experiment and quantifies multiple physico–chemical parameters and their respective removal percentages. These parameters are: Electrical Conductivity (EC), pH, Temperature (Temp.) , Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD5), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Nitrite (NO2), Ammonia-nitrogen (NH3-N), Phosphate – phosphorus (PO4-P), Nitrate (NO3) and some heavy metals (HMs) of (Cr, Ni, Cu, Fe, Pb and Cd). EM demonstrates significant potential for application in TIW, as it achieves high removal percentages for parameters such as ammonia with 96% removal efficiency, phosphorus by 100% and BOD5by 72.38%) at minimal EM dosages of 5 ml EM dose. However, it was ineffective in reducing COD and some of HMs average values.It was concluded that utilization of EM for bioremediation of TIW offers numerous advantages from economic viability, ease of design and environmentally friendly & sustainability