Phytoremediation of Kitchen Wastewater Using <i>Eichhornia crassipes</i>

Abstract

Increasing demand for food and irrigation motivates reuse of wastewater. In this study, the effective role of water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) for remediation of nutrients and metals/metalloids present in kitchen wastewater (KWW) has been evaluated. This study is an initiative to turn zero-value kitchen wastewater into a valuable wastewater resource. KWW samples were collected from the hostel mess of an educational institution in India. The physical and chemical parameters were monitored for 4&nbsp;weeks. In the initial sample, concentration of electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), nitrate-nitrogen (NO3−-N), ammonium-nitrogen (NH4+-N), phosphate-phosphorous (PO43−-P), and potassium (K+) were found to exceed the standard limit for irrigation water quality, whereas the concentration of these parameters reduced to 63.71%, 63.71%, 99.01%, 94.36%, 98.05%, and 83.30%, respectively, when fresh KWW plus water hyacinth (WH) was kept for 28&nbsp;days. However, an increase of 51.73% and 117.34% biomass (fresh weight) was observed for fresh KWW+WH and decomposed KWW+WH , respectively. A higher value of bioconcentration factor (BCF) was found for iron (8,363.40) in fresh KWW+WH, whereas a higher BCF value for iron (1,481.33), nickel (1,497.3), zinc (5,225.4), and mercury (1,286.9) was observed in decomposed KWW+WH. It was also observed that calcium, copper, magnesium, sodium, lead, and potassium showed a translocation factor (TF) &gt;1 in fresh KWW+WH, whereas calcium, magnesium, sodium, and mercury showed TF&gt;1 for decomposed KWW+WH. This study shows one approach for reducing the wastewater handling problem and paves the way for solving demand for freshwater.