Roughing filter for water pre-treatment technology in developing countries: A review

Roughing filtration can be considered as a major pre-treatment process for wastewater, since they efficiently separate fine solids particles over prolonged periods without addition of chemicals. This review article summarizes and evaluates modifications to roughing filtration technology, which may address these limitations without compromising the simplicity of the treatment process. Successful modifications includes broken burnt bricks, charcoal and coconut fibre as filter media. The paper also reviews the design concept and process capabilities for roughing filter and it also discusses recent innovations in roughing filter design that now enable this technology to be applied more widely than would have been appropriate 2 decades ago. Achieved results in this study shows that roughing filtration may be considered as efficient pretreatment process incase surface water is used as water supply.   Key words: Roughing filter, sedimentation, absorption, turbidity.