Research Article
Said M. Badr El-Din, Reda A. A
Abstract
The potential uses of growing aquatic plants for wastewater purification were examined on laboratory scale in batch experiments. These aquatic plants, duckweed, water hyacinth and green algae (Chlorella vulgaris), enhances the removal of pollutants by absorbing in the form of plant nutrients. Plants are capable of decreasing all tested indicator of water quality to level that permit the use of the purified water for irrigation. Chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biological oxygen demand (BOD5) reduced in wastewater to (43% and 42%) by duckweeds, (28% and 33%) by water hyacinth, and (33% and 38%) by green algae for 21 days. Duckweeds have much higher pollutants removal efficiencies, especially, N, P, K and other heavy metals than water hyacinth and green algae. So, duckweed was promise to use in wastewater treatments than water hyacinth and green algae