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Purification of water contaminated with Hg using horizontal subsurface constructed wetlands

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Abstract

As a global pollutant, Hg (Hg) since the turn of the last century has received increased attention. Decreasing the emission of Hg into the food chain and the atmosphere is an effective way to reduce the Hg damage. The current study provided information about pilot-scale horizontal subsurface flow (HSSF) constructed wetlands (CWs) to remove different Hg species in polluted water. Synthetic wastewater was fed to two HSSF CWs, one was planted with Acorus calamus L and the other was unplanted as a control. The total Hg (THg), dissolved Hg (DHg), and particulate Hg (PHg) from five sites along the HSSF CWs were analyzed to describe the process of Hg removal. Results show that the CWs have high removal efficiency of Hg which is more than 90%. The removal efficiencies of THg and DHg from the unplanted CW were 92.1 ± 3.6% and 72.4 ± 13.1%, respectively. While, the removal efficiencies of THg and DHg in planted CW were 95.9 ± 7.5% and 94.9 ± 4.9%, which were higher than that in blank CW. The PHg was mainly removed in the first quarter of the CWs, which was also revealed by the partition coefficient Kd. To a certain extent, the effect of plants depends on the hydraulic retention time (HRT). The results in the current study show the potential of the HSSF-CWs for restoration from Hg-contaminated water.

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Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China NSFC Grants (No. 51550110231, 51650410657).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Municipal Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Southeast University (SEU), Nanjing, 210096, China

    Rajendra Prasad Singh, Jiaguo Wu & Dafang Fu

  2. SEU-Monash Joint Research Centre for Future Cities, Nanjing, 210000, China

    Rajendra Prasad Singh, Jiaguo Wu & Dafang Fu

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  1. Rajendra Prasad Singh
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  2. Jiaguo Wu
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Correspondence to Dafang Fu.

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Highlights

• Horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetlands planted with Acorus calamus L show good performance for Hg removal.

• Removal efficiency of particulate Hg was much higher than that of dissolved Hg.

• Plant’s contribution was expressed as the difference in the removal efficiency of dissolved Hg.

• To a certain extent, the effect of plants depends on the hydraulic retention time.

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Singh, R.P., Wu, J. & Fu, D. Purification of water contaminated with Hg using horizontal subsurface constructed wetlands. Environ Sci Pollut Res 26, 9697–9706 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-04260-9

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