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Removal of Nonionic Surfactants from Wastewater Using a Constructed Wetland
Author(s) -
Šíma Jan,
Holcová Veronika
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
chemistry and biodiversity
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.427
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1612-1880
pISSN - 1612-1872
DOI - 10.1002/cbdv.201100063
Subject(s) - nonionic surfactant , chemistry , wastewater , cationic polymerization , extraction (chemistry) , pulmonary surfactant , chromatography , inflow , detection limit , environmental chemistry , organic chemistry , environmental engineering , environmental science , biochemistry , physics , mechanics
Removal of nonionic surfactants from municipal wastewater using a constructed wetland with a horizontal subsurface flow was studied in 2009 and 2010. Extraction spectrophotometry with 3′,3″,5′,5″‐tetrabromophenolphthalein ethyl ester and KCl served to determine the analyte concentrations. Triton ® X‐100 was used as a standard to express the nonionic‐surfactant concentrations. Anionic and cationic surfactants were shown not to interfere during the determination. Nonionic surfactants were degraded (to products undeterminable by the method) with a high average efficiency that reached 98.1% in 2009 and 99.1% in 2010, respectively. The average concentration of nonionic surfactants at the inflow was 0.978 mg/l, while it was close to the limit of quantification at the outflow (0.014 mg/l). A significant fraction of nonionic surfactants (38.7%) was already degraded during the pretreatment, and only 14.0% of the nonionic surfactants remained in the interstitial H 2 O taken in the vegetation bed at a distance of 1 m from the inflow zone at a 50‐cm depth. Nonionic surfactants were degraded both under aerobic and anaerobic conditions.