UNIVERSITI TUN HUSSEIN ONN MALAYSIA

FACULTY CIVIL & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

SESSION I 2014/2015

NATURE CONSERVATION

BFC10202

SEKSYEN 4

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT

REUSE POTENTIAL OF ABLUTION WATER FROM IIUM MASJID

NAME : MOHD ZAIRUL SHAFIQ BIN ZAKARIA

MATRIX NUMBER : CF140239

LECTURER : DR RADIN MAYA SAPHIRA BINTI RADEN MOHAMED

INTRODUCTION

Ablution means the act of washing selected parts of the body by using clean water.

Muslim and Muslimah are required to clean certain part of the body in preparations for the

prayers. On the other hand in a country, where Muslims wash five times a day for prayers,

much water was being wasted during ablution, the average volume of water resulted from the

process of ablution is 5.37 liters of one person. Besides the daily prayers, International

Islamic University Malaysia ( IIUM ) Masjid is also very active in conducting many types of

religious and sosial community activities and programs. In most of the cases, the participants

are required to make ablution before entering the Masjid. The Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah

Masjid is located at the centre of the main campus of IIUM at Gombak, interconnecting the

hostels, administrative and academic building. Inside the Masjid, there are two places for

ablution, one for the males and the other for the females. However, according to the Masjid

Office, the estimated average total number of people prays in the normal working day, during

the semester is around 3000 per day. Although the price of water is not so high in Malaysia, it

would be good for the environment and conservation of resources if the used ablution water

is recycled and reused for various permissible activities in the campus. As such, the quality of

the used ablution water was assessed and its potential to be used as recycled water in the

campus is reported in this paper. The main objective of the short study was to determine the

quantity and quality of ablution water used in the IIUM Masjid to assess its potential to be

used as recycled water in campus for non-potable usages.

MATERIALS AND METHOD

Samples of used ablution water were collected from three location of the IIUM

Masjid to estimate the quantity of water used and its quality discharged to the drains.

Ablution water samples were collected and analyzed for a period of two months. The

following parameters were tested, Total Dissolved Solid (TDS), Turbidity or Total

Suspended Solid (TSS), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and Total Nitrogen (TN). The

Standard Method (APHA, 1998) were used to determine the quality of the used ablution

water before and after treatment with sand filter.

Total Dissolved Solid (TDS) is a measure of the combined content of all inorganic

and organic substances contained in a liquid in molecular, ionized or micro-granular

(colloidal sol) suspended form. Turbidity or Total Suspended Solid (TSS) is a water quality

measurement usually abbreviated TSS. This parameter was at one time called non-filterable

residue (NFR), a term that refers to the identical measurement for the dry weight of particles

trapped by a filter. In environment chemistry, the Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) test is

commonly used to indirectly measure the amount of organic compounds in water. Total

Nitrogen (TN) is measurement of organic nitrogen is difficult due to the need to digest the

sample prior to analysis in order to convert the organic nitrogen into a form that is more

amenable to analysis.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

The daily water consumption due to ablution in the IIUM Masjid is about 7 liter (L)

per day. Ablution water quality was measured in terms of few selected parameters. It few

observed that the mean value of the parameters were lower than the Ministry of Health

(MOH) Standard for drinking water quality in Malaysia. The result water from ablution can

be reused in economic ways to replace the fresh water in toilet flushing. Although, the data

indicated that quality of selected chemical and physical parameters are acceptable, occasional

increase in the aesthetic pollutants can be high. Therefore, to ensure good quality of recycle

water the used ablution water should be treated through sand filters with sand media having

effective size ranging between 0.35 and to 0.55 mm and uniformity coefficient should be

range between 1.3 and 1.7.

CONCLUSION

Based on this study, low strength grey water from ablution treatment and reuse

scheme is our proposed. The resulting water from ablution can be reused in economic ways to

replace grey water systems for irrigation, even with a higher automation level for can belong

to the primary grey water systems group where there is no treatment and storage allowed.

This study revealed that the concentration of COD, TSS, TDS, and TN in the used ablution

water was quite low. Therefore, the ablution water discharge from IIUM Masjid could be

recycled in order to conserve resources. The ablution water could be recycled and use for

flushing toilet and landscaping of the surrounding areas.