Rapid monitoring and assessment of pollutional load in dairy waste water

Abstract

In the present scenario, an attempt was made to develop an ideal device (BOD biosensor) with computer-aided software capable of determining the varying BOD load of dairy waste waters and which facilitates instant monitoring. The shelf life of the developed biosensor was more than 400 days. The results of extensive testing of the developed BOD biosensor on dairy waste water over a period of time demonstrate that the BOD values obtained by the device are statistically correlated with conventional BOD values, irrespective of the varying load of waste water (which might occur as a result of different operations in industry). The developed BOD biosensor shows good reproducibility and repeatability over a period of time. Good correlation (r² = 0.991) was observed between the values obtained from the developed sensor and conventionally estimated values. The repeatability of the measurements with the BOD biosensor dairy industrial waste water samples (inlet and outlet) was within a percentage deviation of ±10%.