Journal of
Civil Engineering and Construction Technology

  • Abbreviation: J. Civ. Eng. Constr. Technol.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 2141-2634
  • DOI: 10.5897/JCECT
  • Start Year: 2010
  • Published Articles: 140

Full Length Research Paper

A study on arsenic and copper extraction capacity of Spirodela polyrhiza from water

Sourav Ray*
  • Sourav Ray*
  • Department of Construction Management, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
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S. Islam
  • S. Islam
  • Department of Construction Management, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
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D. R. Tumpa
  • D. R. Tumpa
  • Department of Construction Management, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
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M. A. Kayum
  • M. A. Kayum
  • Department of Construction Management, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
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S. D. Shuvro
  • S. D. Shuvro
  • Business School, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
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  •  Received: 17 October 2014
  •  Accepted: 03 December 2014
  •  Published: 31 January 2015

 ABSTRACT

Heavy metals such as arsenic (As), copper (Cu), chromium (Cr), Hg, lead (Pb) and cobalt (Co) cause adverse effects on living organisms by their toxic nature. To remove heavy metals, a variety of conventional treatment technologies have been tested which are not economical and user friendly. So, natural remediation method such as phytoremediation is becoming more popular where plants are used. Phytoremediation is a cost effective and eco-friendly method. This paper accounts the study to exercise the phytoremediation potential of the aquatic plant Spirodela polyrhiza for arsenic and copper removal from water. To carry out the study, six plastic bowls each carrying 1 L distilled water were taken where arsenic and copper of known concentration was added for preparing a solution, which contained 1.0, 0.9, 0.7, 0.6, 0.5, and 0.3 mg/L of arsenic and 5.0, 4.6, 4.2, 3.8, 3.4 and 3.0 mg/L of copper. 50 g of S. polyrhiza plant was placed in water of each bowl. The concentration of arsenic and copper in water was measured by spectrophotometer using Silver diethyldithiocarbamate (SDDC) and Bicinchoninate methods, respectively and test was performed for 7 days after placing plants in solution. Gross effective floating period for S. polyrhiza was found 96 h up to initial concentration of 0.6 mg/L to treat arsenic contaminated water and 3.4 mg/L to treat copper contaminated water. The extraction capacity of S. polyrhiza was found more than 80% for all concentration of arsenic and more than 60% for all concentration of copper after 96 h. The removal of arsenic and copper was found to follow the first order kinetics except copper with initial concentration of 5.0 and 4.6 mg/L.

 

Key words: Spirodela polyrhiza, phytoremediation, first order kinetic


 INTRODUCTION

Environmental protection and conservation are facing new challenges due to the raise of global development (Duruibe et al., 2007). Because of globalization, industrialization and urbanization are increasing rapidly which creates problems like pollution and water pollution is one of them. Consequent to water pollution, there is a scarcity of fresh water in every part of the world. Heavy metal pollution is one of the reasons of water pollution. Heavy metals can occur naturally or can be found in industrial waste. Heavy metal pollution is a widespread problem and has direct effect on human and environmental health (Hogan, 2012). Heavy metals are toxic at higher concentrations. Common heavy metals are cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), cobalt (Co), zinc (Zn), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu) and arsenic (As) (Agarwal, 2009; Merrill et al., 2007).
 
Among the various heavy metals, arsenic and copper are well known toxic metal. Arsenic contamination is a great threat to millions of people in many countries of the world such as China, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and Thailand (Bissen and Frimmel, 2003). Arsenic creates many human health problems. Symptoms of acute arsenic poisoning are nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, cyanosis, cardiac arrhythmia and confusion. Symptoms of chronic arsenic poisoning are less specific (Ng et al., 2003). These include depression, numbness, sleeping disorders and headaches. Arsenic related health effects are usually not acute, but mostly encompass cancer, mainly skin cancer (Wang et al., 2007). The World Health Organizations (WHO) provisional guideline of 0.01 mg/L has been adopted as the drinking water standard. However, many countries have retained the earlier WHO guideline of 0.05 mg/L as their standard including Bangladesh and China.
 
Copper is present in the wastewater of several industries, such as metal cleaning and plating baths, refineries, paper and pulp, fertilizer and wood preservatives (Periasamy and Namasivayam, 1996). Copper can be found in many kinds of food, water and air. Because of that, people absorb eminent quantities of copper each day by eating, drinking and breathing. The excessive intake of copper by man leads to severe mucosal irritation, widespread capillary damage, hepatic and renal damage, liver and kidney damage (Kalavathy et al., 2005). The WHO provisional guideline for copper is 1.0 mg/L which is also for the Bangladesh drinking water quality standard has been adopted worldwide.
 
Several techniques based on the principal of precipitation, ion exchange, electrolysis, solvent extraction, reverse osmosis, membrane and bio-sorption process (McNeill and Edwards, 1997; Tiravanti et al., 1997; Kumari et al., 2006) have been established to remove metals from water. It is very difficult to select an appropriate one. Some are effective but not economical. Some are not user friendly, technologically not sound, post treatment required, and skill manpower required. Sometimes water standard cannot be maintained.
 
Among these methods, phytoremediation technology has become increasingly popular. Aquatic plants and their associated microbes are used to absorb metals from surrounding water and are extremely efficient. It is considered a clean, cost effective and non-environmentally disruptive technology (Hannink et al., 2001).
 
Ebel et al. (2007) studied on Eichhomia crassipes and found that it has high growth rate, high tolerance to pollution and has absorption capacity of heavy metal. It is an efficient plant for wastewater treatment (Fang et al., 2007;  Ebel et  al.,  2007). Myriophyllum aquaticum, Ludwigina palustris and Mentha aquatic could effectively remove Fe, Zn, Cu and Hg from contaminated water (Kamal et al., 2004). Lemna minor could accumulate Cu and Cd from contaminated wastewater (Kara, 2004; Hou et al., 2007). Myriophyllum spicatum was an efficient plant for the metal contaminated industrial wastewater treatment (Lesage et al., 2007).
 
Greater duckweed (Spirodela polyrhiza) was tested under laboratory condition by Rahman et al. (2007, 2008) to investigate arsenic uptake efficiency and mechanisms interaction with PO43- and Fe ions. They observed that As (v) uptake by S. polyrhiza was negatively correlated with phosphate uptake and positively correlated with iron uptake. Total arsenic was extracted by the plant about 56%.
 
Arsenic removal from water by E. crassipes was performed by Alvarado et al. (2008) and the results found that it had a removal rate of 600 mg arsenic ha-1 d-1 under field condition and a removal recovery of 18% under laboratory condition.
 
The potentiality of the rootless duckweed Wolffia globosa for arsenic accumulation and tolerance was investigated by Zhang et al. (2009). It was found that this plant can accumulate >1000 mg of arsenic kg-1 dry weight (dw) and can tolerate up to 400 mg arsenic kg-1 dw.
 
Loveson et al. (2013) studied on the efficiency of S. polyrhiza to improve the quality of two polluted wetland. In first wetland, percentage reduction of heavy metals such as Pb, Cu, Zn Cr, Hg, Co and Mg after 8 days treatment period was 95, 79, 66, 53, 45, 26, 20 and 7%, respectively. Again for the same treatment period of 8 days second wetland’s heavy metals such as Cd, Fe, Pb, Cu, Zn and Hg reduced by 100, 98, 91, 74, 62 and 53%, respectively.
 
The present study establishes to develop the phytoremediation potential of the aquatic plant S. polyrhiza for arsenic and copper from water.


 MATERIALS AND METHODS

Selection of plant material
 
Young aquatic plants S. polyrhiza (L). Schleiden were collected from a lake of Shahajalal University of Science and Technology and rinsed with tap water to remove any epiphytes and insect larvae grown on plants. The plants were placed in pots with tap water under natural sunlight for 1 day to allow them to adapt the new environment.
 
Sample preparation
 
Stock solution of arsenic and copper was prepared in the laboratory. Solution was added to each bowl containing 1 L distilled water for preparing arsenic concentration of 0.3, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.9 and 1 mg/L and copper concentration of 3, 3.4, 3.8, 4.2, 4.6 and 5 mg/L.
 
Experimental setup
 
The whole experiment was carried out in the water supply and sanitation laboratory of Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of Shahajalal University of Science and Technology. Six identical plastic bowls (radius 9” and depth 4”) were used in this experiment (Figure 1). Each bowl was kept in open air for growing plants naturally. Spectrophotometer and other subsidiary equipment were used to perform the work.
 
 
Experimental procedures
 
 
50 g of plants were transplanted into every pot of arsenic and copper test and allow them to take water containing arsenic and copper. Water was collected from each bowl after 1, 2, 4 and 6 h in 1st day to measure the remaining amount of arsenic and copper in water. From the next day, water was collected once a day and it continued up to 7 days. Concentration of arsenic and copper in water was measured by spectrophotometer using Silver diethyldithiocarbamate (SDDC) method (SM 3500-As B, 1999) and Bicinchoninate method (Method 8506, Hach Handbook of Water Analysis, 1979), respectively. No external agent was required during the experiment period.
 
Kinetic modeling
 
It was found out whether the extraction of arsenic and copper from water by S. polyrhiza follows first order kinetics or not.


 CONCLUSION

The extraction of arsenic and copper from water using S. polyrhiza was studied in this research. After 96 h the ability of S. polyrhiza to absorb high concentration of arsenic (>0.6 mg/L) and copper (>3.4 mg/L) were decreased and they started to discharge arsenic and copper. Arsenic with initial concentration (?0.6 mg/L) and copper with initial concentration (?3.8 mg/L) reached to the margin of Bangladesh drinking water quality standard 0.5 and 1.0 mg/L, respectively. High concentration of arsenic (>0.6 mg/L) and copper (>3.8 mg/L) need further treatment to reach that margin. Gross effective floating period for S. polyrhiza is 96 h up to initial concentration of 0.6 mg/L to treat arsenic contaminated water and 3.4 mg/L to treat copper contaminated water. The removal percentage was more than 80% for all concentration of arsenic and for copper the removal percentage was more than 65% for all concentration. It was also revealed that the major portion of all concentration of arsenic that is more than 50% was extracted on 1st day except 0.9 mg/L. But for copper it was more than 35% for all concentration except 5.0 mg/L. The removal or accumulation of arsenic and copper from water by S. polyrhiza follows first order removal kinetics except copper with initial concentration of 5.0 and 4.6 mg/L.


 CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The author(s) have not declared any conflict of interest.


 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors are grateful to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology for providing the laboratory facilities. This is also acknowledged that this work is a version of an undergraduate thesis work of D.R. Tumpa and M.A. Kayum supervised by Sourav Ray. 



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