Sie sind auf Seite 1von 14

Waste Water Treatment using Water Hyacinth Rajendra B. Magar1, Afroz N.

Khan2, Abdulrazzak
Honnutagi3 1Professor and Head, Civil Engineering Department, Kalsekar Technical Campus, School of
Engineering and Technology, New Panvel, Maharashtra, India. rajendramagar69@gmail.com) 2Lecturer,
Civil Engineering Department, Kalsekar Technical Campus, School of Engineering and Technology, New
Panvel, Maharashtra, India. afroz.nk@gmail.com 3Director, Kalsekar Technical Campus, School of
Engineering and Technology, New Panvel, Maharashtra, India. director.aiktc@gmail.com

bstract - The roots of Water hyacinths (WH) naturally

absorb pollutants including lead, mercury, and strontium-


90, as well as some organic compounds which are
carcinogenic and have concentrations of approximately
10,000 times that is present as in generically found water.
WH can be cultivated for waste water treatment and it can
be used to aid the process of water purification either for
industrial waste water or sewer water, in addition to
available techniques. The root structures of water hyacinth
provide a suitable environment for aerobic bacteria to
remove various impurities present in water. This study
attempts to evaluate the effect of WH in two different types
of sewer or drainage line, one from water closet and another
from bath or shower room. Further, the reading for various
parameters like Potential of hydrogen(pH), Turbidity,
Chemical oxygen demand (COD), chloride and color has
been periodically taken every 24 hrs for 5 days. The effect of
WH has resulted in significant decrease in turbidity and due
to which the removal of flocs and reduction in organic
matters in water have been observed. The primary purpose
of this study is to make use of the water hyacinth plant for
the purification of the industrial waste water and its
treatment.
Keywords - hyacinth plant; aquatic plants; water
purification
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Conventional treatment methods such as trickling
filter, activated sludge process etc. are used in order to
treat sewage. Thus energy, cost, manpower is consumed
in a large amount. Just as non-conventional sources are
now necessary over conventional sources for the mode of
energy, eco-friendlier and energy saving ways to treat
sewage is the need of time and should be put to use. The
natural ways are extremely cost saving. Water hyacinth is
a free-floating perennial aquatic plant native to tropical
and sub-tropical South America. With broad, thick,
glossy, ovate leaves, water hyacinth may rise above the
surface of the water as much as 1 meter in height. The
leaves are 10–20 cm across, and float above the water
surface. They have long, spongy and bulbous stalks. The
feathery, freely hanging roots are purple-black. An erect
stalk supports a single spike of 8-15 conspicuously
attractive flowers, mostly lavender to pink in color with
six petals. One of the fastest growing plants known, water
hyacinth reproduces primarily by way of runners or
stolons, which eventually form daughter plants. It also
produces large quantities of seeds, and these are viable up
to thirty years. The common water Hyacinth
(Eichhorniacrassipes) is vigorous growers known to
double its population in two weeks. The plant is
extremely tolerant and has a high capacity for the uptake
of heavy metals, including Cd, Cr, Co, Ni, Pb and Hg,
which could make it suitable for the bio-cleaning of
industrial wastewater. In addition to heavy metals,
Eichhorniacrassipes can also remove other toxins, such as
cyanide, which is environmentally beneficial in areas that
have endured gold mining operations. Water hyacinth
removes arsenic from arsenic contaminated drinking
water. It may be a useful tool in removing arsenic from
tube well water in Bangladesh.
The conventional treatment system like activated sludge
process and trickling filters require energy input for
treatment of waste water. Moreover, in rural areas it is
very difficult to practice such treatment process due to
economic and space concern. Also skilled labors are
required to operate such treatment plants. Hence we need
to find economical and efficient substitute for such
treatment plants which should be eco-friendly. Water
hyacinth is a type of aquatic floating plant systems which
do not require any energy consumption. It can be adopted
in rural areas where conventional treatment methods
cannot be used due to economic and space concern. It is
an eco-friendly type of system and hence has greater
scope in nearby future and can be proved as a beneficial
substitute for conventional treatment method. The
objective of the study is to measure the growth rate and
Evapotranspiration of water hyacinth test its efficiency
parameters like Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD)
removal, total solids (TS) removal and compare it with
waste stabilization pond.
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW
Phytoremediation is one of the biological wastewater
treatment methods [1], and is the concept of using plants-
based systems and microbiological processes to eliminate
contaminants in nature. The remediation techniques
utilize specific planting arrangements, constructed
wetlands (CW), floating-plant systems and numerous
other configurations [2]. The removal of wastewater
constituents is achieved by different mechanisms like
Waste Water Treatment using Water Hyacinth
Rajendra B. Magar1, Afroz N. Khan2, Abdulrazzak Honnutagi3
1Professor and Head, Civil Engineering Department, Kalsekar Technical Campus, School of
Engineering and Technology,
New Panvel, Maharashtra, India. rajendramagar69@gmail.com)
2Lecturer, Civil Engineering Department, Kalsekar Technical Campus, School of Engineering
and Technology, New
Panvel, Maharashtra, India. afroz.nk@gmail.com
3Director, Kalsekar Technical Campus, School of Engineering and Technology, New Panvel,
Maharashtra, India.
director.aiktc@gmail.com
sedimentation, filtration, chemical precipitation,
adsorption, microbial interactions, and uptake of
vegetation [3], among which, the most effective
technology is phytoremediation strategy using CW
technology. Besides water quality improvement and
energy savings, CWs have other environmental protection
features such as promoting biodiversity, providing habitat
for wetland organisms and wildlife (e.g. birds and reptiles
in large systems) [4], serving climatic (e.g. less CO2
production [4]; hydrological functions and bio
methylation [5]). These systems are generally cost
effective, simple, environmentally non-disruptive [1,6]
ecologically sound [7] with low maintenance cost [8] and
low land requirements [9]. The principles of
phytoremediation system are to clean up contaminated
water, which include identification and implementation of
efficient aquatic plant; uptake of dissolved nutrients and
metals by the growing plants; and harvest and beneficial
use of the plant biomass produced from the remediation
system [9].
The most important factor in implementing
phytoremediation is the selection of an appropriate plant
[1,10], which should have high uptake of both organic and
inorganic pollutants, grow well in polluted water and
easily controlled in quantitatively propagated dispersion
[1]. The uptake and accumulation of pollutants vary from
plant to plant and also from specie to specie within a
genus [11]. The economic success of phytoremediation
largely depends on photosynthetic activity and growth
rate of plants [7], and with low to moderate amount of
pollution [12]. Many researchers have used different plant
species like Water Hyacinth (Eichhorniacrassipes (Mart.)
Solms) [12-20], Water Lettuce (Pistia stratiotes L.) [21-
25], Duckweed (Water Lemna), Bulrush (Typha), Vetiver
Grass (Chrysopogonzizanioides) [1,26-28] and Common
Reed (Phragmites Australis) for the treatment of water.
Researchers have used these species for different types of
contaminated waters, effluents etc.
Mkandawire and Dude [29] have used duckweed and they
found its growth was restricted above 34 C and pH
sensitive. Mashauri et al. [30] used bulrush and his study
revealed that the total dissolved solids (TDS) and
electrical conductivity (EC) concentration was increased
after treatment. Baskar et al. [31] in his study of kitchen
wastewater treatment found only 4% TDS removal by
common reed. Hence water hyacinth, water lettuce and
vetiver grass were selected for review because they
efficiently remove the heavy metals and other pollutants
with high reproduction rate, efficiency and tolerance of
ecological factors. In this paper, role of these plant species
have been discussed for the removal of water
contaminants.
3.0 METHODOLOGY
Conventional wastewater treatment consists of a
combination of physical, chemical, and biological
processes and operations to remove solids, organic matter
and, sometimes, nutrients from wastewater. General terms
used to describe different degrees of treatment, in order of
increasing treatment level, are preliminary, primary,
secondary, and tertiary and/or advanced wastewater
treatment. In some countries, disinfection to remove
pathogens sometimes follows the last treatment step. A
generalized wastewater treatment diagram is shown in
Figure 1.
Fig. 1. Sewage treatment process
From the above Fig. 2, The different processes of
conventional waste water treatment include, such as Inlet
Chamber, Screening, Removal of Oil and Grease, Grit
Chamber, Distribution Chamber, Anoxic Tank, Aeration
Tank, Secondary Clarifier, Mixing water chamber,
Centrifuge, Polyelectrolyte Dosing System, Pre- Aeration
Tank and Biological Filters.
The standards of Influent and Effluent have been obtained
from Sewage Treatment plant as shown in Table 1.
TABLE 1
INFLUENT AND EFFLUENT STANDARDS AT STPs
Parameter
Influent
Effluent
Temperature (in ºC)
Ambient
Ambient
PH
6-8.5
6.5-8.5
BOD₅ (mg/l)
250
< 20
COD (mg/l)
400
< 250
Oil and Grease (mg/l)
30
< 10
Total Solids (mg/l)
350
< 30
Residual Chlorine (mg/l)
-
<1
Nitrate (mg/l)
-
< 10
NH3 (mg/l)
-
1.5- 2
As the Sewage treatment plants (STPs) mainly comprises
of units like Aeration Tank, mixing water chamber,
Centrifuge, Polyelectrolyte Dosing System, Pre-aeration
tank, Biological filters and Chlorine Mixing tank etc.
hence high amount of electricity is required for various
operations of mixing and aeration purpose. STP is located
at a place where load shedding is prominent which has
Inlet
Chamber
Screening
Removal of
oil and
grease
Grit chamber Distribution
chamber
Anoxic tank
Aeration
tank
Secondary
clarifier
Mixing water
chamber
Centrifuge
Polyelectroly
te dosing
system
Pre-aeration
tank
Biological
filters
resulted into decrease in the efficiency of plant. Humus
formed is difficult to remove. Moreover, the efficiency of
COD removal was also low.
A. Waste water treatment by water hyacinth
Water hyacinth is aquatic vascular plant with rounded,
upright and shiny green leaves and lavender flowers
similar to orchids. It is fast growing perennial with great
reproduction potential. Growth of water hyacinth is
primary dependent on ability of plant to use solar energy,
nutrient composition of water, cultural methods and
environmental factors.Optimal water pH for growth of
this aquatic plant is neutral but it can tolerate pH values
from 4 to 10. This is very important fact because it points
that water hyacinth can be used for treatment of different
types of wastewater. Optimal water temperature for
growth is 28-30oC. Temperatures above 33oC inhibit
further growth.
B. Growth Rate
Water hyacinth is fast growing perennial aquatic
macrophyte. It is a member of pickerelweed family. This
tropical plant spread throughout the world in late 19th and
early 20th century. Today it is well-known for its
reproduction potential and as a plant that can double its
population in only twelve days. Water hyacinth is also
known for its ability to grow in severe polluted
waters.Just like all other biological processes growth of
water hyacinth depends on various ecological factors. The
qualities of water and air temperatures are considered as
main limiting factors for regular plant development and
growth. Water hyacinth is growing fastest at temperatures
from 200C to 300C, but growth fully stops at
temperatures from 80C to 150C.To understand the
growing ability of water hyacinth, its growth rate was
studied .Figure 2 shows Water Hyacinth being weighed.
Fig. 2 Water Hyacinth being weighed
Above Fig. 2 shows a water hyacinth plant which was
taken and allowed to grow in a bucket of capacity 16 lit.
with fresh water. Weight of this water hyacinth plant was
taken weekly in a digital weighing machine (Least count
of 0.1g) for seven consecutive weeks and a weight Vs
time graph was obtained. Figure 3 shows the growth rate
of water hyacinth was 33 gm/week
Fig. 3. Per week Growth rate of water hyacith
Especially in the seventh week the growth of water
hyacinth was more due to the growth of new leaves and
development in its root system. From the graph obtained
it can be concluded that water hyacinth can double its
population in less than two weeks, with an average local
temperature of 240 C to 340C.
C. Evapotranspiration of Water Hyacinth
Two barrels of 50 liters capacity each (one with water
hyacinth and another without water hyacinth) were taken
and filled with equal volume of water (30 liters). After 24
hours the depleted water levels were measured in both the
barrels. The difference between the readings of the barrels
will give the transpiration rate of water hyacinth whereas
the reading of the barrel in which the water hyacinth was
kept will give the Evapotranspiration. Below Table. 2
shows an observation for evapotranspiration.
TABLE 2
OBSERVATION TABLE FOR EVAPOTRANSPIRATION
Day
Mean Temp
(ºC)
Evaporation
(cm/day)
Evapotranspiration
(cm/day)
Feb-15
26.5
0.4
1.0
Feb-16
26.5
0.4
1.0
Feb-17
26.4
0.4
1.0
Feb-18
27
0.4
1.0
Feb-19
27
0.4
1.0
Feb-20
26.5
0.4
1.0
Feb-21
27
0.4
1.0
Feb-22
27.5
0.4
0.9
Feb-23
27.5
0.4
1.1
Feb-24
28
0.4
1.1
From the Table.2 it has been observed that, the
evapotranspiration of water hyacinth was found to be
1.235 cm/day in the month of Feb-2017.
4.0 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
45.1
105.4
145.8
171.1
186.2
198.9
247.2
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Weight in Grams
No. of Weeks
The waste water sample taken for Batch 1 was the
effluent from the toilet and bathroom chamber. Both the
barrel was filled with the effluent waste water. The water
hyacinth barrel was stocked with 2kg net weight of plants,
having roots 10-40 cm long. The detention time of 5 days
was applied to both the barrels. Table 3 gives the
reduction in waste water quality parameters for batch 1.
TABLE 3
RESULTS OF BATCH 1 SAMPLES
Test
Sample 1(Water Hyacinth)
Sample 2 (Waste
Stabilisation Pond)
Day 1
Day 3
Day 5
Day 1
Day 3
Day 5
Ph Paper
8
7
7
8
7
7
Ph Meter
6.95
6.93
6.93
6.95
6.96
6.94
Ts
937
400
280
937
360
240
Ds
533.6
280
150
576
160
100
Ss
403.4
120
130
360
200
140
Cod(mg/lit)
550
757.57
549.24
550
314
180
Chloride
179.9
174.95
169.95
180
179.95
179.95
Color
Black
Light
Grey
Dark
Grey
Black
Brown
Dark
Brown
From Table 3, it has been observed that, the total solid
(TS) efficiency using water hyacinth (WH) was 70.11%
and that of the waste stabilisation pond was 74.38%. The
dissolved solid (DS) using WH is 71.89% to that of
82.6% of waste stabilisation pond (WSP). The Chemical
oxygen demand (COD) using WH gave efficiency up to
0.14 % as compared to 63.7% using WSP. It may be
because of excess weight of plant used in the WH barrel.
More than 2kg/m2 plant weight were introduced in the
barrel with waste water. Hence the plant did not give the
maximum results and the COD in fact increased instead of
decreasing.
The waste water sample taken for Batch 2 was the
effluent from thetoilet and bathroom chamber. Both the
barrel was filled with the effluent waste water. The water
hyacinth barrel was stocked with 2kg net weight of plants,
having roots 10-40 cm long. The detention time of 5 days
was applied to both the barrels. Table 4 gives the
reduction in waste water quality parameters for batch 2.
TABLE 4
RESULTS OF BATCH 2 SAMPLES
Test
Sample 1(Water Hyacinth)
Sample 2 (Waste
Stabilisation Pond)
Day 1
Day 3
Day 5
Day 1
Day 3
Day 5
Ph Paper
8
7
7
8
7
7
Ph Meter
6.95
6.93
6.93
6.95
6.96
6.94
Ts
2650
1113
660
2650
1018
712
Ds
1100
578
300
1100
500
750
Ss
1550
535
360
1550
518
362
Cod(mg/lit)
815
420
250
815
460
290
Chloride
50
49
48
50
50
50
Color
Black
Grey
Dark
Grey
Black
Brown
Dark
Brown
The TS efficiency using water hyacinth was 75.09% and
that of the waste stabilization pond was 68.2%. The DS
using WH is 72.89% to that of 31.6% of WSP. The COD
using WH gave efficiency up to 69.33% as compared to
64.41% using WSP. The plant showed great capacity to
treat the waste water in this range. The efficiency
increased almost two fold and the COD reduced to a
considerable extent.
5.0 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
Water hyacinth can be used to treat sewage with effluent
standards within the range 750-850mg/lit. It is highly
suitable for tropical wet and dry climate. Also, requires
minimal space for the set-up and if the waste water flow is
high, then a series or parallel set-up of water hyacinth can
be done, thus using land and space to the maximum
extent. The plant doesn’t require any energy for its
function and hence it is suitable where there isn’t proper
supply of power or where the cost of energy is too high.
REFERENCES
[1] Roongtanakiat, N., Tangruangkiat, S. and Meesat, R., 2007,
Utilization of vetiver grass (Vetiveriazizanioides) for removal of
heavy metals from industrial wastewaters., ScienceAsia, 33, 397-
403.
[2] Cunningham, S.D., William, R.B. and Jianwei, W.H., 1995,
Phytoremediation of contaminated soils., Tibtech, 13, 393-397.
[3] Hammer, D.A., Constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment.,
2nd (ed.), Lewis, Chelsea, Michigan, 1989.
[4] Dixon, A., Simon, M. and Burkitt, T., 2003, Assessing the
environmental impact of two options for small scale wastewater
treatment: Comparing a reed bed and an aerated biological filter
using a life cycle approach., Ecol. Eng., 20, 297-308.
[5] Azaizeh, H., Salhani, N., Sebesvari, Z. and Emons, H., 2003, The
potential of rhizosphere microbes isolated from a constructed
wetland to biomethylate selenium., J. Environ. Qual., 32, 55-62.
[6] Wei, S.H. and Zhou, Q.X., 2004, Discussion on the basic
principles and strengthening measures for phytoremediaton of soil
contaminated with heavy metals., Chinese. J. Ecol., 23, 65-72.
[7] Xia, H. and Ma, X., 2006, Phytoremediation of ethion by water
hyacinth (Eichhorniacrassipes) from water., Bioresource Technol.,
97, 1050-1054.
[8] Kirkpatrick, A.D., 2005, Assessing constructed wetlands for
beneficial use of saline-sodic water., M.S. Thesis, Land Resources
and Environmental Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman.
[9] Lu, Q., 2009, Evaluation of aquatic plants for phytoremediation of
eutrophic stormwaters., Ph.D Thesis, University of Florida,
Florida.
[10] Stefani, G.D., Tocchetto, D., Salvato, M. and Borin, M., 2011,
Performance of a floating treatment wetland for in-stream water
amelioration in NE Italy., Hydrobiologia, 674, 157-167.
[11] Singh, O.V., Labana, S., Pandey, G., Budhiraja, R., Jain, R.K.,
2003, Phytoremediation: An overview of metallic ion
decontamination from soil., Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol., 61, 405-
412.
[12] Jamuna, S. and Noorjahan, C.M., 2009, Treatment of sewage waste
water using water hyacinth - Eichhorniasp and its reuse for fish
culture., Toxicol. Int., 16(2), 103-106.
[13] Valipour, A., Raman, V.K. and Ghole, V.S., 2011,
Phytoremediation of domestic wastewater using
Eichhorniacrassipes., J. Environ. Sci. Eng., 53(2), 183-190.
[14] Lissy, A.M.P.N, and Madhu, B.Dr.G., 2010, Removal of heavy
metals from waste water using water hyacinth., In: Proc. of the
International Conference on Advances in Civil Engineering, 42-47.
[15] Dhote, S. and Dixit, S., 2007, Water quality improvement through
macrophytes: A case study., Asian J. Exp. Sci., 21(2), 427-430.
[16] Dar, S.H., Kumawat, D.M., Singh, N. and Wani, K.A., 2011,
Sewage treatment potential of water hyacinth
(Eichhorniacrassipes)., Res. J. Environ. Sci., 5(4), 377-385.

(PDF) Waste Water Treatment using Water Hyacinth. Available from:


https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323278568_Waste_Water_Treatment_using_Water_H
yacinth [accessed Nov 29 2018].

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen