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Combined Effect of Macrophytes for Enhanced Pollutant Removals from Anaerobic Reactor Brewery Effluent

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Abstract

Untreated or partially treated effluents generated from urban and rural breweries in Ethiopia poses high environmental pollution problems. For effective polishing of anaerobically treated food processing effluents, series stage horizontal flow (HF) subsurface constructed wetland (SSCW) systems are encouraging. Cyperus alternifolius and Typha latifolia based wastewater treatment showed good pollutant removal efficiencies. However, their combined treatment efficacy is lacking. Therefore, this study assesses the efficacy of these macrophytes for enhanced removal of pollutants from anaerobic reactor brewery effluent. HF – HF SSCW unit planted with these macrophytes was built for polishing of anaerobic reactor effluent. Both influent and effluent were subjected for total suspended solid (TSS), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total nitrogen (TN), ammonia – nitrogen (NH4+ − N), total phosphorous (TP), and orthophosphate (PO4 – P) analysis. The result showed that enhanced abatement efficiencies varied from 81.6–97.1%TSS, 89.6–96.4%COD, 79.3–88.8%TN, 87.9–96.3% NH4+ − N, 54.8–89.1%TP and 58.5–90.3% PO4 – P were achieved. Combined macrophytes gave enhanced nutrient accumulation of 1290 gTNm−2 and 708.7 gTPm−2 in the aboveground biomass. In general, polishing of anaerobic reactor brewery effluent using two-stage phytoremediation process meets the discharge cap of all examined main brewery pollutants at each monitoring periods except phosphorous, and recommended as a viable polishing option.

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Acknowledgments

On behalf of the authors, the corresponding author thank Kombolcha brewery factory management teams for providing necessary equipment and laboratory facilities, Addis Ababa and Assosa Universities for their little financial support.

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  1. Department of Chemistry, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, Assosa University, P.O. Box 18, Assosa, Ethiopia

    Ermias Alayu & Seyoum Leta

  2. College of Natural Science, Center for Environmental Science, Addis Ababa University, P.O.Box 1176, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Tadese Alemu & Andualem Mekonnen

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  1. Ermias Alayu
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Alayu, E., Leta, S., Alemu, T. et al. Combined Effect of Macrophytes for Enhanced Pollutant Removals from Anaerobic Reactor Brewery Effluent. Wetlands 43, 13 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-021-01403-y

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