Constructed wetlands for rural domestic wastewater treatment: A coupling of tidal strategy, in-situ bio-regeneration of zeolite and Fe(II)-oxygen denitrification.

Abstract Constructed wetlands (CWs) offer a promising method to treat domestic wastewater in rural areas, but CWs usually limiting in nitrogen removal and large area. In this study, zeolite and pyrite were used to construct tidal wetlands to address the problems of insufficient oxygen supply and carbon source. The results show that the fully drained wetland achieved the highest ammonia removal load of 34.67 ± 1.72 g/(m2·d) with 8.57 ± 1.13 mg/L of effluent. Pyrite was found to compensate for the lack of carbon source in the denitrification process in half-drained wetland, which achieved a 78.36 ± 5.3% TN removal rate with 7.09 ± 1.85 mg/L effluent concentration. Pyrite released Fe(II) to promote nitrate reduction for denitrification in the subsequent flooded period. Microbial community analysis indicates that the tidal flow constructed wetlands simultaneously achieved nitrification and denitrification by the coupling of in-situ zeolite regeneration and Fe(II) oxidation denitrification.