Performance Assessment of the Vertical Flow Constructed Wetlands Treating Effluent from the UASB Reactor – A Demonstration in a Tropical Climatic Region

Abstract

This paper presents the performance of the vertical flow constructed wetlands (VF-CWs) that has been investigated at a demonstration-scale level for the treatment of effluent from the anaerobic digestor (up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket) for municipal wastewater. The area of the bed is 480m2 with a depth of 1.0m, having dual media. The macrophytes (vegetation) used in the VF-CWs is phragmites australis. The performance efficiency of the system was measured for different parameters like BOD, COD, TSS, TKN, and TC. The result indicates that the combination of UASB & VF-CWs offers a very promising way to deal with the municipal wastewater within cost-effective and sustainable approaches, particularly in the developing countries in a tropical climatic regions. The overall removal efficiency from UASB and VFCW for COD, BOD, TSS, TKN is 80.8%, 91%, 88.23% and 92.25% respectively. The total coliforms removal has been observed from 1E+06 to 1E+04 CFU/100ml