Nutrient removal in a pilot and full scale constructed wetland, Putrajaya city, Malaysia

Putrajaya Wetlands in Malaysia, a 200ha constructed wetland system consisting of 24 cells, was created in 1997-1998 to treat surface runoff caused by development and agricultural activities from an upstream catchment before entering Putrajaya Lake (400ha). It was designed for stormwater treatment, flood control and amenity use. The water quality improvement performance of a section of the wetland cells is described. The nutrient removal performance was 82.11% for total nitrogen, 70.73% for nitrate-nitrogen and 84.32% for phosphate, respectively, along six wetland cells from Upper North UN6 to UN1 from April to December 2004. Nutrient removal in pilot scale tank systems, simulating a constructed wetland and planted with examples of common species at Putrajaya, the Common Reed Phragmites karka and Tube Sedge Lepironia articulata, and the capacity of these species to retain nutrients in above and below-ground plant biomass and substrate is reported. The uptake of nutrients by the Common Reed and Tube Sedge from the pilot tank system was 42.1% TKN; 28.9% P and 17.4% TKN; 26.1% P, respectively. The nutrient uptake efficiency of the Common Reed was higher in above-ground than in below-ground tissue. The results have implications for plant species selection in the design of constructed wetlands in Malaysia and for optimizing the performance of these systems.     

The impact of vegetation on sedimentary organic matter composition and PAH desorption

Relationships between sedimentary organic matter (SOM) composition and PAH desorption behavior were determined for vegetated and non-vegetated refinery distillate waste sediments. Sediments were fractionated into size, density, and humin fractions and analyzed for their organic matter content. Bulk sediment and humin fractions differed more in organic matter composition than size/density fractions. Vegetated humin and bulk sediments contained more polar organic carbon, black carbon, and modern (plant) carbon than non-vegetated sediment fractions. Desorption kinetics of phenanthrene, pyrene, chrysene, and C₃-phenanthrene/anthracenes from humin and bulk sediments were investigated using Tenax^® beads and a two-compartment, first-order kinetic model. PAH desorption from distillate waste sediments appeared to be controlled by the slow desorbing fractions of sediment; rate constants were similar to literature values for k_slow and k_{very slow}. After several decades of plant colonization and growth (Phragmites australis), vegetated sediment fractions more extensively desorbed PAHs and had faster desorption kinetics than non-vegetated sediment fractions.     

江苏省近岸海域表层海水微塑料的组成与赋存特征

于2019年10月,对江苏省(连云港、盐城和南通3市)近岸海域6个站位进行了1个航次的表层海水微塑料采样,监测分析了微塑料的粒径、丰度和组分分布情况.结果表明,江苏省近岸海域表层海水中微塑料污染广泛存在,监测站位检出率100％.微塑料粒径分布为0.02～4.80 mm,微米级微塑料占比最高(总体粒径占比83.4％),6...     

Coprecipitation mechanisms of Zn by birnessite formation and its mineralogy under neutral pH conditions

Birnessite (δ-Mn(IV)O₂) is a great manganese (Mn) adsorbent for dissolved divalent metals. In this study, we investigated the coprecipitation mechanism of δ-MnO₂ in the presence of Zn(II) and an oxidizing agent (sodium hypochlorite) under two neutral pH values (6.0 and 7.5). The mineralogical characteristics and Zn–Mn mixed products were compared with simple surface complexation by adsorption modeling and structural analysis. Batch coprecipitation experiments at different Zn/Mn molar ratios showed a Langmuir-type isotherm at pH 6.0, which was similar to the result of adsorption experiments at pH 6.0 and 7.5. X-ray diffraction and X-ray absorption fine structure analysis revealed triple-corner-sharing inner-sphere complexation on the vacant sites was the dominant Zn sorption mechanism on δ-MnO₂ under these experimental conditions. A coprecipitation experiment at pH 6.0 produced some hetaerolite (ZnMn(III)₂O₄) and manganite (γ-Mn(III)OOH), but only at low Zn/Mn molar ratios (< 1). These secondary precipitates disappeared because of crystal dissolution at higher Zn/Mn molar ratios because they were thermodynamically unstable. Woodruffite (ZnMn(IV)₃O₇•2H₂O) was produced in the coprecipitation experiment at pH 7.5 with a high Zn/Mn molar ratio of 5. This resulted in a Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET)-type sorption isotherm, in which formation was explained by transformation of the crystalline structure of δ-MnO₂ to a tunnel structure. Our experiments demonstrate that abiotic coprecipitation reactions can induce Zn–Mn compound formation on the δ-MnO₂ surface, and that the pH is an important controlling factor for the crystalline structures and thermodynamic stabilities.