Lab Scale Studies on Water Hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes Marts Solms) for Biotreatment of Textile Wastewater

Textile wastewater contains substantial pollution loads in terms of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Total Suspended Solids (TSS), Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and heavy metals. Phytoremediation used for removing heavy metals and other pollutants by aquatic macrophytes treatment systems (AMATS) is well established environmental protective technique. A lab scale study was conducted to test the feasibility of water hyacinth for treating textile wastewater. The pH was reduced from alkaline to nearly neutral in all cases studied with the introduction of water hyacinth. The maximum reduction in the conductivity was 55.71% while the BOD and COD reduction ranged from 40 to 70%. A great deal of reduction in the total solids was noted in all the waste samples with a maximum reduction of 50.64%. Water hyacinth has tremendous potential to absorb heavy metals from the textile wastewater as it resulted in 94.78% reduction of chromium, 96.88 % in zinc and 94.44 % reduction in copper. ANOVA showed a significant (p<0.05) reduction in all the pollutants with the passage of time. Thus water hyacinth can be an efficient biological agent in reducing the pollution loads in textile industry wastewater.