Phytoremediation of Heavy Metals From Mixed Domestic Sewage Through Vertical- Flow Constructed Wetland Planted with Canna Indica and Acorus Calamus

Abstract

The removal of contaminants from sewage wastewater through constructed wetlands is becoming increasingly popular worldwide. Constructed wetland (CW) is a man-made structure for wastewater treatment that uses natural processes associated with wetland vegetation, soils, and their associated microbial combinations. This study investigated the performance of experimental vertical flow constructed wetland (VFCW) cells to remove heavy metals (HMs) from primary treated sewage. The primary treated sewage was collected from the sewage treatment plant (STP) in the campus of Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Amarkantak, India. Sewage wastewater samples were collected from all cells of the experimental VFCW and analyzed for four heavy metals (Zn, Fe, Cu, and Cr). The plant species results show that the removal efficiency of the Canna indica L. for Zn, Fe, Cu, and Cr was 95%, 92%, 96%, and 93 % and Acorus calamus L.were 89 %, 80 %, 91 %, and 47 % respectively. These macrophytes with the substrate (gravel and sand) have presented a wide range of tolerance to all the selected metals and therefore can be used for field-scale constructed wetland removal of heavy metals from sewage wastewater.