Phytoremediation Of Sugar Industry Effluent Water Using Some Aquatic Plant Species And Phytosorption Of Some Heavy Metals And Synthetic Mono Azo Dyes By Eichhornia Crassipes Mart Solms Pontederiaceae And Ipomoea Aquatica Forssk Convolvulaceae

Abstract

The effluent waste water released from sugar industry into nearby water bodies produces a high level of organic pollution showing dramatic changes in water quality parameters which would largely impact aquatic flora and fauna, and finally livelihood for locals. Conventional treatment methods for treating this wastewater are expensive, laborintensive and contribute to secondary pollution. In view of this, phytoremediation methods are considered to be economical, effective and ecologically safe to decontaminate the sugar industry effluents and hence aquatic plant species have been used for the study. Standard methods used by different workers for phytoremediation research were used for the evaluation of the efficiency of aquatic plants to change the water quality parameters and scavenge heavy metals and synthetic azo-dyes. In this study, the physico-chemical parameters such as colour, temperature, pH, conductivity, TDS, DO, BOD, COD, chloride and sulphate were analyzed for the sugar industry effluent wastewater collected from M/S Vijayarama Gajapathi Co-operative Sugars Ltd., Vizianagaram District, Andhra Pradesh, India. Then, eight aquatic plant species namely, Eichhornia crassipes (Pontederiaceae), Epipremnum aureum, Pistia stratiotes (Araceae) and Hydrilla verticillata (Hydrocharitaceae), Ipomoea aquatica (Convolvulaceae), Nelumbo lutea (Nelumbonaceae), Marsilea quadrifolia (Marsileaceae) and Salvinia minima (Salviniaceae) collected from the vicinity of Gosthani River near Korukonda Village, were used to evaluate their efficiency levels to change the physicochemical parameters such as colour, temperature, pH, TDS, DO, BOD, COD, chloride and sulphate of the effluent wastewater which was treated with each plant species for a period of 15 days and the changes in the selected parameters were recorded. The test plant species changed effluent water colour from dark brownish before treatment to light brownish/grey after treatment, the temperature from 41°C before treatment to 30-33°C after treatment, the pH from 6.4 be