Design of a Reed Bed System for Treatment of Domestic Wastewater Using Native Plants
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Journal of Ecological Engineering Received: 2020.04.01 Revised: 2020.05.30 Volume 21, Issue 6, August 2020, pages 22–28 Accepted: 2020.06.15 Available online: 2020.07.01 https://doi.org/10.12911/22998993/123256 Design of a Reed Bed System for Treatment of Domestic Wastewater using Native Plants Fayeq Abdel Hafez Al-Ajalin1, Mushrifah Idris1,2, Siti Rozaimah Sheikh Abdullah3, Setyo Budi Kurniawan3, Muhammad Fauzul Imron4* 1 Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia 2 Tasik Chini Research Centre, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia 3 Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia 4 Study Program of Environmental Engineering, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universitas Airlangga, Kampus C UNAIR, Jalan Mulyorejo, Surabaya 60115, Indonesia * Corresponding author’s e-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT The reed bed system is one types of phytoremediation technology for removing pollutants from the environment. This technology provides an environmentally friendly approach to treating contamination with competitive cost, compared to the physico-chemical treatment. The design of reed bed system is highly important in order to achieve the highest pollutant removal efficiency. The design of reed bed system affects the natural oxygen transfer from the environment. The reed bed system was proven to have a good efficiency in removing Biological Oxygen De- mand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Total Suspended Solid (TSS), Total Dissolve Solid (TDS), Total Nitrogen (TN) and a number of bacteria. In addition to the oxygen transfer from the environment, the interaction among pollutant-plants-medium-microbes also plays a vital role in the removal of pollutant using the reed bed system. It was suggested that the future related research should accommodate the importance of several environ- mental conditions to the interaction between pollutant, plants, medium and microbes as well as the impact of those interactions on the pollutant removal efficiency. Keywords: domestic wastewater, green technology, interactions, local plants, phytoremediation. INTRODUCTION al., 2002). As a result of this action, a very high population of micro-organisms is promoted and Phytoremediation is one of the treatment enhanced in the rhizosphere (Bolan et al., 2011; technologies that utilize plants to remediate the Safronova et al., 2006; Titah et al., 2018). The pollutants in contaminated environments (Ismail reed bed system is a combination of three inter- et al., 2017; Purwanti et al., 2019). It improves dependent key elements: the growing medium, the condition of environments following the re- the plants and the micro-organisms (Ismail et al., moval of the contamination (Bolan et al., 2011). 2019; Manios et al., 2002; Zhang et al., 2013). This technology is also considered to be low cost It is necessary to find the optimal reed bed and environmentally friendly in terms of the real design characteristics such as residence time in implantation (Kinidi and Salleh, 2017; Tien et al., order to maximize the removal efficiency under 2018). The reed bed system is a man-made wet- the smallest-as-possible treatment area (Purwanti land planted with selected species of plants (reeds) et al., 2018b). Understanding the behavior of reed which have a capability to take oxygen from the beds treating wastewater is required to obtain air and release it into the rhizosphere (Manios et the optimum condition for wastewater treatment 22 Journal of Ecological Engineering Vol. 21(6), 2020 processes. Typically, the domestic wastewater size and sand. The gravel of different size was contains pathogens (bacteria), total solids (dis- employed as a medium in the system with an al- solve and suspended), nutrients (nitrogen and ternative arrangement (10–15 mm, 3–5 mm (river phosphorus), other organic pollutants and traces sand) and 30–35 mm respectively) instead of the of heavy metals (Ahmad et al., 2016; Mtshali et conventional medium arrangement to form mul- al., 2014; Ning et al., 2017; Samer, 2015). tiple layers in the reed beds (Figure 2). It was reported that up to 18% of rivers were This bed system was designed to provide oxy- polluted by organic compounds as the presence gen on the surfaces in which other organisms can of high biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). grow and proliferate. The beds were planted with Around 24% of rivers in Malaysia were also pol- treatment plants which are highly suggested to be luted by ammoniacal nitrogen (NH3-N) originated native plants already proven to have good capabil- from sewage that may include the livestock farm- ity in removing pollutants (Imron et al., 2019; Is- ing activities and domestic wastewater (Katayon mail et al., 2015; Purwanti et al., 2018b). Numer- et al., 2008; Ministry of Science Technology and ous flow systems inside the reed bed, including the Environment Malaysia, 2003). These pol- free flow, subsurface flow (horizontal or vertical lutants need to be brought down to permissible flow) or combination of these, can be considered limits before the disposal of effluent by maximiz- for application (Cossu et al., 2001; Mehraban et ing removal of pollutants from domestic waste- al., 2008) and the selection of appropriate flow water (Manju et al., 1998; Tangahu et al., 2019; diagram must consider the characteristic of the Titah et al., 2019). Hence, this paper was aimed wastewater and the type of the used plants (Bolan at discussing about the design of reed bed system et al., 2011; Shagol et al., 2011; Tangahu et al., for treatment of domestic wastewater. Addition- 2011). The reed bed system must be operated in ally, the paper also aimed at investigating the ef- parallel during the operation period to overcome fectiveness of native plants in treating domestic the maintenance time (Dodane et al., 2012). wastewater. The result of this study may provide a general design of a phytoremediation reactor, The availability of oxygen in the reed bed ma- especially using a reed bed system and provide an trix mostly is key factor restricting the removal alternative technology for treating the domestic rates of pollutants (Ahmad et al., 2017; Cossu et wastewater. al., 2001; Darajeh et al., 2014). Therefore, em- ploying good natural recirculation system may in- fluence the performance of a reed bed by increas- Design of Reed Bed System ing the atmospheric oxygen exchange. Recircula- Figure 1 presents a schematic diagram for tion of wastewater may also be installed in order the reed bed system, which was designed for the to enable better diffusion of oxygen from the air domestic wastewater treatments. It consisted of to maintain aerobic conditions and also enhance four lines; each line has three identical beds made the pollutants-plants-microorganisms interaction of fiberglass columns of 2 m length, 1 m width (Al-Baldawi et al., 2018; Hasan et al., 2016; Hus- and 1 m height. The type of medium used for this sain et al., 2018; Kumar and Gopal, 2015; Saf- reed beds mostly consists of gravel of different ronova et al., 2006). Figure 1. Schematic diagram for the reed bed system 23 Journal of Ecological Engineering Vol. 21(6), 2020 Figure 2. Medium arrangement in this reed bed system Table 1. Performance of reed bed in treating wastewater Type of No Reed bed system Plant species Findings Source effluent A reliable performance to reduce BOD Vetiveria zizanioi- Constructed wetland and COD of blackwater up to the per- Wulandari et al. 1 Blackwater des and system missible value with 50% and 56% of (2019) Typha angustifolia total removal, respectively. The complete treatment plant con- sisted of anaerobic baffled reactor Scirpus grossus Constructed wetland Food industry and constructed wetland showed re- Purwanti et al. 2 and system effluent moval of COD, BOD and nutrient up to (2018b) Typha angustifolia 99.71%, 99.76%, and 98.9%, respec- tively. The system achieved total removal of 77% for COD, 78% for BOD5, 66% for suspended solid, 62% for NH4–N, and 38% for phosphorus, which mean High strength that effluent recirculation can be con- Continuous effluent Phragmites 3 domestic sidered to be applied to improve the Zhao et al. (2004) recirculation system australis wastewater removal efficiency of reed bed by en- hancing interactions between waste- water, plants, and microorganisms ei- ther on surface of the medium or in the rhizosphere. Considerable removal of COD and BOD5 was obtained in both systems. The total removal percentages of COD Conventional and reaching up to 74.79% and BOD up to Farm waste- Phragmites 5 4 alternative medium 67.71% in the anti-sized system. These Sun et al. (2007) water australis arrangement system removal efficiencies were slightly high- er compared to the progressively-sized system which only reach 71.71% for COD and 66.71% for BOD5. Recirculation enhances oxygen trans- port by pumping and re-distributing the wastewater and increase its contact with air. The increasing contact be- tween wastewater and air will enhance Farm waste- Cyperus Kantawanichkul 5 Recirculated system the respiration and activities of the aer- water flabelliforis et al. (2001) obic microorganisms. It also increased the removal of total nitrogen from 71% to 85% and achieving final COD and TKN removal of 95% and 98%, respec- tively. Domestic Constant removal of NH -N, reaching Manios et al. 6 Sub-surface system Typha latifolia 3 wastewater the value up to more than 80%. (2002) A total removal of COD, TSS and total coliform up to 77%, 88%, and 99%, re- Domestic Lepironia Katayon et al. 7 Sub-surface system spectively, indicating that sub-surface wastewater articulata (2008) system may also handle the high num- ber of bacteria in wastewater. 24 Journal of Ecological Engineering Vol. 21(6), 2020 Reed bed performance and Future research approaches selection of plants Further research in the reed bed topic may The performance of reed bed in treating the analyze the optimum environmental condition domestic wastewater is remarkably good.