Water Hyacinth Roots as Economic Potential Biomass for the Removal of Organic Pollutants in Wastewater via Application of Coated Wire Electrodes

The applicability of water hyacinth (eichhornia crassipes) as an important aquaticweed plant in sub-tropical regions of the world makes it a useful bio-accumulator and biosorbentfor some organic pollutants including phenolic pollutants and some nitrogenousorganic pollutants form wastewater. the experimental conditions upon using the investigatedbiomass were optimized to achieve a reduction of the chemical oxygen demand (cod) andthe total organic carbon (toc) by about 90%. also the sorption of the reported pollutantswas examined as a function of its initial concentration in wastewater, ph, weight of roots andcontact time. the concentration of phenolic pollutants and nitrogenous organic compounds ininfluent and effluent of wastewater and in the collected water samples were monitored usingseveral coated wire ion selective electrodes (ises). each ion selective electrode is designedspecifically to monitor one type of pollutants. the results obtained using the dried roots ofwater hyacinth is compared to that obtained when a granular activated carbon (gac) is used.preliminary results show that the outlet of the purification biomass meets most of theregulator’s limits for discharge of treated wastewater in egypt. therefore, the treatedeffluents can be used safely in different applications such as irrigation of golf course, greenway or park. if it is sufficiently clean it can also be used for ground water recharge, inrecharging of batteries or in some industrial use. moreover, such water hyacinth roots can beused as an effective tool for the treatment and reuse of wastewater as they have been shownto adsorb and accumulate toxic elements.