Nutrient removal in pig farm wastewater using aquatic macrophytes - water hyacinth (eichhornia crassipes) and water lettuce (pistia stratiotes)

• Main Author: Wee, Boon Hong.
• Format: Final Year Project Report
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) 2005
• Subjects: QK Botany; QL Zoology; SB Plant culture; SF Animal culture
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/19982/8/Wee%20Boon%20Hon%20%20%28fulltext%29.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/19982/

The efficiency of the two floating aquatic macrophytes (water hyacinth and water lettuce) to improve the water quality of pig fann wastewater was studied. Experiments were · conducted by using pig fann wastewater at different dilution (1: 1, 1:5 and 1 :9) as well as undiluted wastewater. Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) and water lettuce (Pistia stratiotes) grew well in the 1:5 dilution and 1:9 dilution wastewater. Hence, wastewater with 1:5 dilution was selected for the subsequent experiments for evaluating the nutrient removal efficiency of the plants in monoculture and polyculture. The water parameters evaluated in this experiment were water tempemture, pH, dissolved oxygen, ammonia-N, and total phosphorus. For plant contents, total nitrogen and total phosphorus were studied. Throughout the experiments, solar mdiation and surrounding tempemture were continuously monitored. The reduction mte for ammonia-N and total phosphorus followed first-order kinetics. In terms of percent reduction of total phosphorus, water hyacinth monoculture has the greatest perfonnance (62.98%), followed by polyculture system (54.45%). Whereas for percent reduction of ammonia-N, all the plant systems have similar efficiency whereby reducing the ammonia-N up to 99%. Moreover, water hyacinth monoculture could also improve the pig fann wastewater quality in tenns of the pH (pH 7.33) and dissolved oxygen (DO = 7.94mgIL). Therefore, water hyacinth monoculture would serve to be a better floating aquatic macrophytebased wastewater treatment system in nutrient reduction followed by polyculture and water lettuce monoculture.