Phytoremediation of Domestic Sewage in Constructed Wetland Integrated with Cultivation of Chlorella sp.: A Novel Technique for Remediation and Resource Recovery

Abstract

Domestic sewage-based constructed wetland (CW) showed that the effluent from CW-system contain enough plant nutrients and enhanced the growth of microalgae. Hence, a pilot CW system employing Typha latifolia in domestic sewage, integrated with the cultivation wild type Chlorella sp. was investigated. Phytoremediation at 48 hours of detention time caused significant changes in its physicochemical properties and the generated effluent was notably attractive for the cultivation of microalgae. The microalga was grown in 6 treatments: treated-mixotrophic (T₁), treated-heterotrophic (T₂), treated-autotrophic (T₃), control-mixotrophic (T₄), control-heterotrophic (T₅) and control-autotrophic (T₆) conditions for 8 days inside an incubator. The results suggested that phytoremediation effluents integrated with mixotrophic cultivation of microalgae, utilising both light and carbon sources could be the most efficient, environmentally safe, sustainable and novel technique for synergistic resource generation and bioremediation.