ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Synthetic Black Water Treatment by Aeroponic
Cultivation of Water Spinach: Effect
of the Pump Run Time
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1
School of Life and Environmental Science, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou325027, Zhejiang, China
2
Urban Water Pollution Ecological Treatment Technology Zhejiang Engineering Laboratory,
Wenzhou325027, Zhejiang, China
3
School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Submission date: 2019-12-14
Final revision date: 2020-07-30
Acceptance date: 2020-07-31
Online publication date: 2020-11-24
Publication date: 2021-01-20
Corresponding author
Xiangyong Zheng
School of life and environmental science, Wenzhou University, China
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2021;30(2):1349-1359
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ABSTRACT
In this study, we report the treatment of simulated black water using a decentralised aeroponic
system for the cultivation of water spinach. The effect of the pump run time on the treatment efficiency
of black water at low temperature (15ºC±5ºC) in winter was systematically investigated. The results
show that aeroponic cultivation process yields average chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal of
90.04%, ammonia nitrogen (NH4+-N) reduction of 35.02%, total nitrogen (TN) abatement of 28.14%,
and total phosphorus (TP) elimination of 14.71%. The increase in the pump run time from stop time
(min) to spray time (s) ration of 45:30 (QW3) to 15:30 (QW1) significantly promotes the efficiency of
the COD, NH4+-N, TN, and TP removals. The sequence of the removal efficiency is as follows: QW1
(15:30)>QW2 (30:30)>QW3 (45:30). The higher efficiency of the COD and NH4+-N removals in QW1
is due to the enhanced action of aerobic microorganisms because of the increased amount of dissolved
oxygen. We believe that this study provides a simple and potential option for decentralised sewage.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.