Extracting river pollutants using Amazonian plants Jonathan L Jones - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
OVERCOMING THE BIGGEST TREATMENT CHALLENGES Extracting river pollutants using Amazonian plants Jonathan L Jones Senior Environment Officer WWT Wastewater 2019 Conference & Exhibition, National Conference Centre, Birmingham, 29 January 2019
Jonathan L Jones Senior Environment Officer
WWT Wastewater 2019 Conference & Exhibition, National Conference Centre, Birmingham, 29 January 2019
Jonathan L Jones 29 January 2019 Wastewater 2019 Conference, National Conference Centre, Birmingham
The Fendrod River is currently failing for:
Fish; Macroinvertebrates; Zinc; Cadmium; Manganese; and Poly-aromatic Hydrocarbons
Ecological Status or Potential High Good Moderate Poor Bad Based upon physical, chemical and biological status If one element fails then that is the status of that water body
Jonathan L Jones 29 January 2019 Wastewater 2019 Conference, National Conference Centre, Birmingham
The river, which is approximately 4.5km in length, is a tributary of the main River Tawe, which in turn drains the Swansea Valley into Swansea Bay (an EU designated bathing water, SSSI and Commercial fishery)
Situated in the heart of the South Wales Coal
field;
Location of historic metal smelting; During the 1800s, 60% of the world’s copper and
zinc was smelted here due to an abundance of coal;
Smelting waste was disposed of in-situ.
*Geological map taken from http://www.bgs.ac.uk
Jonathan L Jones 29 January 2019 Wastewater 2019 Conference, National Conference Centre, Birmingham
Jonathan L Jones 29 January 2019 Wastewater 2019 Conference, National Conference Centre, Birmingham
Vivian & Sons Old Forest Works at Swansea, later converted into Morriston Spelter Works . Reproduced from Col. Grant Francis, ‘The Smelting of Copper in the Swansea District (1881) Numerous Spelter works
floor in Morriston Morfa Bank Works on the Lower Tawe
Jonathan L Jones 29 January 2019 Wastewater 2019 Conference, National Conference Centre, Birmingham
Failure to achieve Good Ecological Status may result in UK Government facing costly infraction proceedings. This would also represent a failure to protect our most vital natural resource.
Environmental pollution is a global problem affecting human, animal and plant
health, particularly in developing countries;
Clean water is needed to support a healthy ecosystem; We need to develop sustainable treatment methods to effectively deal with
problematic pollutants and overcome poor wastewater and river water quality;
With enough research, treatment methods can be developed to utilise waste or
problematic materials as a sustainable source of treatment media;
This has implications for not only waste water treatment though drinking water too,
especially in developing countries and those where water poverty is an issue.
Jonathan L Jones 29 January 2019 Wastewater 2019 Conference, National Conference Centre, Birmingham
Jonathan L Jones 29 January 2019 Wastewater 2019 Conference, National Conference Centre, Birmingham
Site Name Max/Min/Mean Zinc (µg/L) Cadmium (µg/L) Manganese (µg/L)
Nant-Y-Fendrod d/s of flood alleviation lake Maximum Minimum Mean 2400 150
*870.14
4.28 0.19
1.25
563 142
314.57
Nant-Y-Fendrod u/s of Nant-Y-Ffin Maximum Minimum Mean 4320 183
2039.28
12.9 0.19
1.25
9.5 2.42 5.67 Nant-Y-Ffin u/s of Nant-Y- Fendrod Maximum Minimum Mean 2600 150
870.14
17.9 0.44
5.2
21.8 2.18 5.84 Nant-Y-Fendrod d/s of Nant-Y-Ffin Maximum Minimum Mean 4320 327
2399.41
14.4 1.43
7.65
9.87 3.13 6.23 River Tawe d/s of Nant-Y- Fendrod Maximum Minimum Mean 1080 11.9
78.34
9.18 0.111
0.93
6.04 1.02 1.87 River Tawe u/s of Nant-Y- Fendrod Maximum Minimum Mean 45.3 5.29 11.23 0.14 0.11 0.12 2.82 1.07 1.66 Nant Bran u/s of Nant-Y-Fendrod Maximum Minimum Mean 27.4 6.54 15.4 6.41 16.1 0.1 5.65 9.22 1.1 Nant-Y-Fendrod u/s of Nant Bran Maximum Minimum Mean 29.2 5.46 13.99 6.68 0.12 0.82 10.7 1.05 4.03
Jonathan L Jones 29 January 2019 Wastewater 2019 Conference, National Conference Centre, Birmingham
Other than historical contamination, pollution sources that have been identified include fly-tipped waste, domestic sewage, contamination from highway drains, suspended solids from construction activities and contamination from incidents at food and chemical processors; GCMS Screening shows that chronic and acutely ecotoxic chemicals are entering the stream via the drainage system e.g. Bisphenol A, which is a widespread, problematic endocrine disruptor. Passive monitoring has further examined this.
Jonathan L Jones 29 January 2019 Wastewater 2019 Conference, National Conference Centre, Birmingham
Passive Monitoring using Diffuse Gradient in Thin Films and Chemcatcher DGT results identified using ICP-MS
Jonathan L Jones 29 January 2019 Wastewater 2019 Conference, National Conference Centre, Birmingham
Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes)
An aquatic plant which originated in the rain
forests of the Amazon Basin and is native of Brazil;
It is the world’s fastest growing free-floating
hydrophyte;
Its rapid growth produces dense mats that block
water bodies causing flooding, navigation problems and interfere with crop irrigation, power generation and ecological status;
Whilst the plant has a prolific growth rate and is
deemed to be invasive, it is also an excellent accumulator of heavy metals and due to its abundance, presents an attractive low-cost, green remediation strategy;
Images courtesy of Adobe stock photos
Jonathan L Jones 29 January 2019 Wastewater 2019 Conference, National Conference Centre, Birmingham
Phytoremediation Investigations
Conducted at three levels, namely:
A bench-scale study using
polluted river water and synthetic solutions;
An in-situ trial using Water
hyacinth within the Fendrod river; and
A bankside trial to pump and
treat river water;
Jonathan L Jones 29 January 2019 Wastewater 2019 Conference, National Conference Centre, Birmingham
Bench-scale study
Table showing maximum percentage removal of metals observed in ten litre samples of polluted river water exposed to water hyacinth plants over a period of just seven hours;
Column three shows results when extended to three weeks exposure (optimum time required reported in literature):
Metal(loid) Percentage removal 7 hours Percentage removal 21 days Aluminium 63% 100% Zinc 62% 80% Cadmium 47% 100% Manganese 22% 100% Arsenic 23% 45% Nickel 19% 50% Cobalt 14% 100% Initial metal concentrations, expressed in µg/L were as follows: Al – 89.82; Zn – 2020.33; Cd – 6.23; Mn – 421.83; As – 2.11; Ni – 3.99; Co – 1.66
Jonathan L Jones 29 January 2019 Wastewater 2019 Conference, National Conference Centre, Birmingham
In-situ study
Assessed if the plants can remove metal pollutants from actual river water in a dynamic flow setting;
An amount of removal was demonstrated given only a very short exposure time under flow conditions.
Metal(loid) Percentage removal 8 hours Aluminium 18.23% Titanium 10.41% Chromium 39.56% Zinc 12.22% Cadmium 15.47% Manganese 6.37% Arsenic 23% Nickel 7.18% Copper 12.81% Cobalt 21.39% Antimony 26.49% Lead 7.22%
Jonathan L Jones 29 January 2019 Wastewater 2019 Conference, National Conference Centre, Birmingham
Bank side study
Again assessed if the plants can remove metal pollutants from actual river water in a dynamic flow setting without interference
water;
An amount of removal was again demonstrated given only a very short exposure time under flow conditions and under sub-
(conducted in October);
Metal(loid) Percentage removal 8 hours Aluminium 24.58% Chromium 22.57% Zinc 4.04% Cadmium 6.72% Manganese 5.38% Arsenic 9.39% Nickel 5.76% Copper 10.76% Cobalt 6.88% Tin 8.32% Lead 25.54%
Jonathan L Jones 29 January 2019 Wastewater 2019 Conference, National Conference Centre, Birmingham
Comparison of all three studies This Venn diagram shows similarities and differences between metals removal during each of the studies
Jonathan L Jones 29 January 2019 Wastewater 2019 Conference, National Conference Centre, Birmingham
Summing up
Water hyacinth has been used effectively for removing a range of toxic metals from polluted water in the below-
Potential far-reaching consequences of this, in offering the prospect of using a highly invasive ‘weed’ which is a costly and widespread environmental nuisance globally;
This ecologically remarkable ‘weed’ may present a low-cost, low energy, sustainable remediation technology, that has the added benefit of being freely available in developing countries and that is harvested in attempts to control its proliferation (and also works outside of its normal climatic setting);
Compared to the cost and footprint of conventional treatment technologies, this surely merits its full exploitation If interested in learning more about the work, please read and share the full research article in Nature Scientific Reports:
Jonathan L. Jones, Richard O. Jenkins & Parvez I. Haris (2018) Extending the geographic reach of the water hyacinth plant in removal of heavy metals from a temperate Northern Hemisphere river. Scientific Reports. Volume 8, Article number: 11071
Jonathan L Jones 14 June 2018
Many thanks go to my co-authors and PhD Supervisors: Professor Parvez I Haris1, Professor Richard O Jenkins1 ; Personal thanks also go to my Team Leader at Natural Resources Wales, Hamish Osborn2 for his unending support and encouragement; My colleagues Chris Palmer2, Emma Keenan2, Paul Hyatt2, Dr Anthony Gravell3, Natalie Dudley-Burton3, Ben Martins3, Dave Johns3, Dave Hughes3, Nicola Charambalou3, Emily Evans3, Ian Hoskins3, Melanie Schumacher3, Graham Rutt3 and Julie Gething3 for all
I would also like to thank De Montfort University, Natural Resources Wales and the Natural Resources Wales Analytical Service for supporting this work.
1 Faculty of Health & Life Sciences, De Montfort university, Leicester, LE1 9BH, United Kingdom 2 Natural Resources Wales, Maes Newydd, Llandarcy, Neath-Port Talbot, SA10 6JQ, United Kingdom 3Natural Resources Wales Analytical Services, 2nd Floor, Faraday Tower, Swansea University, Singleton, Swansea, SA2 8PP, United Kingdom
Wastewater 2019 Conference, National Conference Centre, Birmingham
Jonathan L Jones 14 June 2018
Wastewater 2019 Conference, National Conference Centre, Birmingham