Full Length Research Paper

Domestic wastewater treatment with a vertical completely drained pilot scale constructed wetland planted with Amaranthus hybridus

Lacina Coulibaly¹*, Jacques Kouakou², Issiaka Savané² and Germain Gourène¹

¹Laboratoire d’Environnement et de Biologie Aquatique, Unité de Formation et de Recherche en Sciences et Gestion de l’Environnement (UFR-SGE), 02 BP 801 Abidjan 02, Côte d’Ivoire.

²Laboratoire de Géosciences et Environnement, Unité de Formation et de Recherche en Sciences et Gestion de l’Environnement (UFR-SGE), 02 BP 801 Abidjan 02, Côte d’Ivoire.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: coulacina2003@yahoo.fr.

Accepted 7 November, 2007

A pilot scale constructed wetland planted with Amaranthus hybridus was developed for domestic wastewater treatment. The reactor system was composed of rectangular beds realized in cement. Each bed was filled from the bottom to the top with 0.1 m of gravel (15/25 mm) and 0.30 m of a white sand originating from the Ebrié lagoon. Two beds planted with yang A. hybridus plants (high density: 40 plants/m²; low density: 10 plants/m²) and one control (unplanted bed) were used to perform the experiment. The pH of the overall filtrates decreased from 7 to around 8. Planted beds gave best COD removal (high density = 70%, low density = 66%) than the control (60%). Globally nutrients were best removed in the planted beds (NH₄⁺: 69%, PO₄^3-: 67%) than in the control (NH₄⁺: 15%; PO₄^3-: 56%). However the important oxidation of NH₄⁺ to NO₂^- and NO₃^- provoked their accumulation in these beds filtrates than in the control. The increase of the plant density seems to have any statistical significant impact upon pollutants removal between the two planted beds experimented. But augmenting plant density allows increasing the beds removal capacities. Plants leaves were less contaminated at 0.5 m height, suggesting it for their harvesting.

Key words: Domestic wastewater, constructed wetland, treatment, Amaranthus hybridus.