Green Silver Nanoparticles in Improvement of Physicochemical and Microbiological Properties of Tannery Wastewater

The water used in the industries becomes wastewater and is discharged into the receiving water bodies or soil without prior treatment to mitigate environmental pollution. The objective of this research was to evaluate the percentage of improvement in the quality of wastewater from a tannery industry by applying silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) obtained by the green method. The treatment was carried out with silver nanoparticles synthesized with Aloysia triphlla extract. As a result, the chemical oxygen demand (COD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), oils and greases (O and G), total suspended solids (TSS) and Escherichia coli were reduced by 93.38, 93.27, 77.71, 91.78 and 100 %, respectively, after 30 minutes of treatment. The results indicated that the silver nanoparticle technology was efficient for the improvement of physicochemical and microbiological parameters of tannery industrial wastewater, but this should be further investigated by proposing other operating conditions such as other doses of silver nanoparticles. This proves that nanotechnology is a viable alternative with environmental advantages for the treatment of industrial wastewater when using nanoparticles obtained by environmentally friendly methods.