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An integrated approach to quantifying the efficiency of plants and algae in water purification and bioethanol production

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Abstract

The inadequate sanitation, global warming, and dwindling natural oil reserves pose significant threats to global sustainable growth. With this objective, biomass availability for bioenergy production could be ensured alternately by exploring non-conventional plant species and algae. This idea was examined by growing divergent plants and algae species separately in horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetlands and raceway ponds, later collected their biomass for bioethanol determination. Through this approach, sewage was fed to constructed wetlands and raceway ponds as influent and passed through these cultivated systems for wastewater treatment. Although all the four plant and algae species showed efficient results in sewage treatment, however, Ipomoea aquatica and Spirogyra were statistically superior to the others and produced the highest biomass yield of 4.5 and 4.1 kg m−2, respectively. For bioethanol production, alkali–autohydrolysis combined pretreatment followed by enzymatic hydrolysis with two successive incubation periods (12 and 24 h) were employed. Results suggested that Spirogyra biomass rendered greater carbohydrate and ethanol concentration (3.7 and 1.9 mg L−1, respectively) during 24 hours of incubation, whereas Oryza sativa acquired similar carbohydrate concentration as Spirogyra but slightly lower bioethanol yield. This study postulates, Spirogyra is promising for wastewater treatment coupled with bioethanol production.

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Open raceway pond and constructed wetland coupled with wastewater treatment and bio-ethanol production

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Acknowledgments

The principal author is grateful to the government of the People’s Republic of China for financing my postgraduate studies at Southeast University, Nanjing, China. Further, the authors acknowledge the funding under the project “Major Science and Technology Projects of Water Pollution Control and Management in the Peoples’ Republic of China” through Grant No. 2017ZX07202004-002.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Science & Engineering, School of Energy and Environment, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210096, China

    Raana Fahim & Lu Xiwu

  2. Institute of Soil Science, PMAS Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, 46300, Pakistan

    Ghulam Jilani

  3. Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Farasat Ali

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  1. Raana Fahim
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Raana Fahim and Xiwu Lu designed and conceived this project and arranged the experiment materials and analysis instruments. Raana Fahim performed experimental and analysis work, while Xiwu Lu supervised during the study. All authors have equal contribution to the data processing and write-up of this manuscript.

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Correspondence to Raana Fahim or Lu Xiwu.

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Fahim, R., Xiwu, L., Jilani, G. et al. An integrated approach to quantifying the efficiency of plants and algae in water purification and bioethanol production. Biomass Conv. Bioref. 13, 1199–1211 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-020-01214-x

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