Phytoremediation of urban wastewater by model wetlands with ornamental hydrophytes

Phytoremediation offers a cost-effective,non-intrusive,and safe alternative to conventional cleanup techniques.In this study,we used ornamental hydrophytes plants as constructed wetlands to treat urban or rural domestic wastewater.Most ornamental hydrophytes adapted to the wastewater well,and were fairly efficient in scavenging BOD_5(biological oxygen demand 5 d),COD(chemical oxygen demand),TN(total nitrogen),TP(total phosphorus)and heavy metals(Cr,Pb,Cd)in the wastewater.However,the efficiency varied a lot for various species to different contaminants,Iris pseudacorus L.and Acorus gramineus Soland were good choices for treatment of composite-polluted urban wastewater.Some variation in the change of membrane peroxidation and endogenous protective system in responses to wastewater was found among six hydrophytes,which have a correlation with the efficiency of wastewater treatment.It may demonstrate that the developed antioxidative systems of I.pseudacorus and A.gramineus contributed much to their superiority. On the other hand,interaction of different components in the wastewater might have certain effects on phytoremediation.     

Effects of inorganic chlorine source on dioxin formation using fly ash from a fluidized bed incinerator

Chlorine source is indispensable for polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin and furan (PCDD/F) formation during municipal solid waste (MSW) incineration. Inorganic chlorine compounds were employed in this study to investigate their effects on PCDD/F formation through heterogeneous synthesis on fly ash surfaces. A fly ash sample obtained from a fluidized bed incinerator was sieved to different size fractions which served as the PCDD/F formation sources. The capability of different metal chlorides which facilitate the formation of PCDDs/Fs was found to follow the trends: Na ＜ Mg ＜ K ＜ Al ＜ Ca, when two particle fractions of ＞177 μm and 104-125 μm were used in the experiments. However, the capability of NaCl, MgCl2 and KCl did not seem much different from each other, whereas CaCl2 and AlCl3 were much more active in PCDD/F formation. NaCl and MgCl2 were relatively effective to produce more PCDDs, while KCl, AlCl3 and CaCl2 generated more PCDFs during heterogeneous reactions occurring on fly ash. 2,3,7,8-TCDF was the most significant contributor to the toxicity of the PCDDs/Fs formed from inorganic chlorine sources. Decreasing the sizes of fly ash particles led to more active formation of PCDDs/Fs when NaCl was used as inorganic chlorine in the experiment. The highest PCDDs/Fs produced from particles with size ＜37 μm, while the lowest PCDDs/Fs produced from particles with size ＞177 μm. The toxicity generally increased with decreasing size of the fly ash particles. The formation of PCDDs was mainly facilitated by the two size fractions, 104-125 μm and ＜37 μm, while formation of PCDFs was favored by the two other size fractions, ＞177 μm and 53-104 μm.     

Composition analysis of colored dissolved organic matter in Taihu Lake based on three dimension excitation-emission fluorescence matrix and PARAFAC model, and the potential application in water quality monitoring

Taihu Lake is one of the five biggest lakes in China. Surface water samples from 26 sampling sites of Taihu Lake were collected. Furthermore wet chemical analysis （CODCr and BOD5） and measurement of three dimensional excitation-emission matrix （3DEEM） spectra in the laboratory have been conducted. Using parallel factor analysis （PARAFAC） model, three components of colored dissolved organic matter （CDOM） have been identified successfully, based on the analysis of 3DEEM data. The characteristics of the three components also have been described by comparing them to some components of CDOM, identified in earlier researches. Meanwhile, spatial variations of concentration for the three components in Taihu Lake have been analyzed, and the result indicates that the concentration of component 1 depends more on the situation of wastewater pollution and can be used as the indicator of wastewater pollution. The relationship between the concentrations of the three components and results of the wet chemical analysis show that none of the three components can be used as indicators of gross organic matter in water. However, the concentrations of all the three components have obvious linear relationships with the BOD5 value, especially for component 1 （r = 0.72878）. Finally, the potential applications of the composition analysis based on 3DEEM and PARAFAC model in water quality monitoring have been illuminated.     

Removal of heavy metals using waste eggshell

The removal capacity of toxic heavy metals by the reused eggshell was studied.As a pretreatment process for the preparation of reused material from waste eggshell,calcination was performed in the furnace at 800℃for 2 h after crushing the dried waste eggshell.Calcination behavior,qualitative and quantitative elemental information,mineral type and surface characteristics before and after calcination of eggshell were examined by thermal gravimetric analysis(TGA),X-ray fluorescence (XRF),X-ray diffraction(XRD) and scanning electron microscopy(SEM),respectively.After calcination,the major inorganic composition was identified as Ca(lime, 99.63%)and K,P and Sr were identified as minor components.When calcined eggshell was applied in the treatment of synthetic wastewater containing heavy metals,a complete removal of Cd as well as above 99% removal of Cr was observed after 10 min. Although the natural eggshell had some removal capacity of Cd and Cr,a complete removal was not accomplished even after 60 min due to quite slower removal rate.However,in contrast to Cd and Cr,an efficient removal of Pb was observed with the natural eggshell rather than the calcined eggshell.From the application of the calcined eggshell in the treatment of real electroplating wastewater, the calcined eggshell showed a promising removal capacity of heavy metal ions as well as had a good neutralization capacity in the treatment of strong acidic wastewater.     

Experimental study on sediment-copper distributions in hyper-concentrated turbulent solid-liquid system

This study presents a special problem on vertical distribution for sediment and copper in hyper-concentrated turbulent solid-liquid system that is essentially different from the ordinary low-concentrated turbulent system. A resonance type turbulent simulation equipment is used for the experimental study in which a vertically uniform turbulent field of the mixture of loess and water is produced in a testing cylinder with a grille stirrer that moves up and down harmoniously with varying vibration frequencies, in order to compare the variations of the vertical profiles of sediment and copper in low- and hyper-concentratod solid-liquid system, different scenarios for input sediment content ranging from 5 to 800 kg/m^3 was considered in the experimental studies. It was found that solids copper content increases with input sediment content, So, and reaches its peak as So goes to 10 kg/m^3 and then decreases rapidly with increasing input sediment content. Such a behavior is possibly resulted from the joint effect of the specific adsorption of copper on loess, precipitation of carbonate and hydroxide of copper due to high carbonate content in the loess and the so-called ＂particulate concentration effect＂ due to the present of the sediment variation in water. The vertical sediment concentration distribution resulted from the uniform turbulence is generally uniform, but slight non-uniformity does occur as sediment concentration exceeds certain value. However, the vertical concentration distributions of soluble copper seem not to be affected much by the variation of sediment concentrations.