Behaviour of 27 selected emerging contaminants in vertical flow constructed wetlands as post-treatment for municipal wastewater

Assessing the impact of micropollutant mitigation measures using vertical flow constructed wetlands for municipal wastewater catchments in the greater region: a reference case for rural areas

“…Results show (Table 5) high removal efficiencies for most relevant compounds with the only exception of AMPA and TCPP, which are still discharged in relevant concentrations. These results confirm those already achieved in a previous pilot installed in a WWTP with less than 10,000 PE, operated for 6 months (Venditti et al 2022).…”

“…Micropollutants. The analyses of the pharmaceuticals were performed externally (Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology LIST, Luxembourg) and the methodology has been previously described (Venditti et al 2022).…”

“…Two CWs (VF1 and VF2) of subsurface vertical flow configuration at pilot scale were evaluated as post-treatment steps for the removal of micropollutants. VF1 and VF2 exhibit a surface area of 11.18 m 2 and 12.78 m 2 respectively and were filled with a mix of sand (grain size 0-3 mm, Liapor, Germany) and 15% activated biochar as supporting material (grain size 2-5 mm, Palaterra, Germany), previously demonstrated to be suitable for this application (Venditti et al 2022). The systems were planted with macrophytes typical of a CW environment Phragmites australis, Lythrum salicaria and Iris pseudacorus (Brunhoferova et al 2021) at a density of 25 plants steams per m 2 .…”

Fate of Glyphosate and its Metabolite Aminomethylphosponic Acid (Ampa) from Point Source Through Wastewater Sludge and Advanced Treatment

“…Two pilot scale constructed wetlands of subsurface vertical flow configuration VF1 and VF2 (11,18 m 2 and 12,78 m 2 surface area, respectively), were filled with a mix of bentonite sand (grain size 0-3 mm, Liapor, Germany) and activated biochar 15% (grain size 2-5 mm, Palaterra, Germany), previously demonstrated to be suitable as post treatment step for the removal of micropollutants (Venditti et al, 2022).…”

What Inspiring Elements from Natural Services of Water Quality Regulation Could Be Applied to Water Management?

“…In the field of functional ecology, the habitats and biodiversity that underpin the natural services of water quality regulation have been studied [28][29][30][31]. There is still a long way to go before all the communities that are potentially involved in the processes can be fully identified, but the literature agrees on the need to identify the benthic communities of invertebrates and the microbial consortium as the main influencers of water purification in situ [1,2,30,32] as well as in artificial contexts [33], such as constructed wetlands [34,35]. The major phenomenon involved in the resilience of this benthic compartment in freshwater and marine environments is called bioturbation [36].…”