Malays. Appl. Biol. (2018) 47(1): 29–35
PHYTOREMEDIATION OF AMMONIACAL NITROGEN
IN WASTEWATER USING Eichhornia crassipes:
TOLERANCE LIMIT AND pH STUDY
WINNIE TING HUONG TIEN1, IVY AI WEI TAN1*, SHANTI FARIDAH SALLEH1 and
NORAZIAH ABDUL WAHAB1
1Department of Chemical Engineering and Energy Sustainability, Faculty of Engineering,
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, 94300 Kota Samarahan, Sarawak, Malaysia
*E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Accepted 23 January 2018, Published online 31 March 2018
ABSTRACT
High ammoniacal nitrogen (AN) in industrial effluent must be treated before final discharge to prevent eutrophication phenomenon. Phytoremediation is recommended to be a better solution to treat wastewater with high AN content due to its cost-effective, environmental friendly and sustainable characteristics. Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) has been widely applied in phytoremediation technology to remove various types of pollutants. In this study, AN synthetic wastewater with varied AN concentrations of 10-200 mg/L was prepared to conduct tolerance limit test of water hyacinth for 10 days. The effect of pH on the physico-chemical parameters of AN synthetic wastewater and water hyacinth biomass growth was also investigated. Under sunlight exposure, it was found that water hyacinth was able to survive up to 150 mg/L of AN concentration for a duration of 10 days. The results showed that pH factor posed a significant impact on biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) and biomass growth of water hyacinth whereas less significant impact was exhibited on chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total suspended solids (TSS). Overall, water hyacinth has been shown to be a feasible macrophyte for phytoremediation of AN in wastewater.
Key words: Phytoremediation, Water hyacinth, Ammoniacal nitrogen, Macrophyte
