Attenuation of emerging organic contaminants in a hybrid constructed wetland system under different hydraulic loading rates and their associated toxicological effects in wastewater

Removal of organic carbon, nitrogen, emerging contaminants and fluorescing organic matter in different constructed wetland configurations

“…While trimethoprim, which occurred at very low concentrations in the UVF effluent, was not detected after the HF bed, the concentration of caffeine was reduced by 82% in this unit. Sulfamethoxazole was negligibly removed in all CW units (≤30%) of treatment line 2, which agrees with the poor degradation of this substance reported in the literature [8,25,27]. However, the SVF reactor showed an enhanced capacity for the removal of this antibiotic, achieving moderate removal efficiencies (64 ± 32%), as opposed to Treatment Line 2 (Fig.…”

“…The sweetener sucralose, which has been shown to be highly recalcitrant during biological treatments [22,36,37], was not degraded in any of the CWs. Finally, the FWS wetland exhibited limited removal of all the investigated PPCPs with the highest one observed for caffeine and sulfamethoxazole (about 25%), being in agreement with earlier sampling campaigns [27]. The poor performance of this wetland unit in respect not only of PPCPs but also conventional water quality parameters indicates that a higher retention time would be required for improved contaminant removal.…”

“…It was commissioned in 2010 and since then it has been continuously operated and monitored as a hybrid system applying increasing hydraulic loads to assess its treatment capacity [25][26][27]. During the period of this study (April to July 2016) the configuration of the treatment plant was slightly modified, including two treatment lines operating in parallel (Fig.…”

Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCPs) in the Environment and Their Removal from Wastewater through Constructed Wetlands

“…Only in the last decade, the effect of these parameters on the removal of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) has been investigated. Those include very few studies evaluating the influence of water depth Matamoros and Bayona, 2006); primary treatment (Ávila et al, 2013a), operation under cycles of saturation/unsaturation (Ávila et al, 2013a); type of organic matter (Matamoros et al, 2008a); type of granular media (Dordio et al, 2009(Dordio et al, , 2010 and other different design parameters and modes of operation (Hijosa-Valsero et al, 2010b, 2011bZhang et al, 2012a,b;Ávila et al, 2014b). Therefore the optimization of the performance of CWs in terms of PPCP removal stands as a necessity that can be achieved through the identification of the optimal design and operational factors of these treatment systems.…”

“…aerobic/anaerobic biodegradation, plant uptake). Although the removal of triclosan was negligible, some more reduction within the water reuse tank seemed to occur, indicating that photooxidation processes may constitute a small contribution to its removal (Mezcua et al, 2004;Ávila et al, 2014b;Salvadó, 2012, 2013). Although the reduction of tonalide concentrations in the FWS could be attributed to sorption onto particulate matter and sediment, further reduction was achieved at the water reuse tank, suggesting photodegradation through sunlight exposure as one of the principal mechanisms of the fragrance tonalide removal within this type of wetland configuration.…”