Treating elevated nutrients, suspended solids, oxygen demanding materials, heavy metals and chemical fertilizers and pesticides in agricultural wastewaters is necessary to protect surface and ground waters. Constructed wetlands (CWs) are an increasingly important technology to remediate wastewaters and reduce negative impacts on water quality in agricultural settings. Treatment of high strength effluents typical of agricultural operations results in the production of methane (CH4), a potent greenhouse trace gas. The objective of this study was to evaluate CH4 emissions from two subsurface flow (SSF) CWs (223 m2 each) treating dairy wastewater. The CWs were implemented at the University of Vermont Paul Miller Dairy Farm in 2003 as an alternative nutrient management approach for treating mixed dairy farm effluent (barnyard runoff and milk parlor waste) in a cold, northern climate. In 2006, static collars were installed throughout the inlet, mid and outlet zones of two CWs (aerated (CW1) and a non-aerated (CW2)) connected in-series, and gas samples were collected via non-steady state chambers (19.75 L) over a nine-month period (Feb-Oct 2007). Methane flux densities were variable throughout the nine-month study period, ranging from 0.026 to 339 and 0.008 to 165 mg m-2 h-1 in CW1 and CW2, respectively. The average daily CH4 flux of CW1 and CW2 were 1475 and 552 mg m-2 d-1, respectively. Average CH4 flux of CW1 was nearly threefold greater than that of CW2 (p = .0387) across all three seasons. The in-series design may have confounded differences in CH4 flux between CWs by limiting differences in dissolved oxygen and by accentuating differences in carbon loading. Methane flux densities revealed strong spatial and seasonal variation within CWs. Emissions generally decreased from inlet to outlet in both CWs. Average CW1 CH4 flux of the inlet zone was nearly threefold greater than mid zone and over tenfold greater than flux at the outlet, while fluxes for CW2 zones were not statistically different. Methane flux of CW1 was nearly fifteen fold greater than CW2 during the fall, representing the only season during which flux was statistically different (p = .0082) between CWs. Fluxes differed significantly between seasons for both CW1 (p = .0034) and CW2 (p = .0002). CH4 emissions were greatest during the spring season in both CWs, attributed to a consistently high water table observed during this season. Vegetation was excluded from chambers during GHG monitoring, and considering that the presence of vascular plants is an important factor influencing CH4 flux, the potential CH4 emissions reported in our study could be greatly underestimated. However, our reported average CH4 fluxes are comparable to published data from SSF dairy treatment CWs. We estimate average and maximum daily emissions from the entire CW system (892 m2) at approximately 1.11 and 6.33 kg CH4 d-1, respectively, yielding an annual average and maximum flux of 8.51 and 48.5 MtCO2-e y-1, respectively.

The polluted agricultural wastewater, after reaching marine recipients, can cause eutrophication. This problem can be tackled and mitigated by using constructed wetlands as water treatment systems. The fact that constructed wetlands work through long periods of time has led many scientists to evaluate how long they can still treat their influents effectively. The development and growth of vegetation and the accumulation of nutrients on the soils in a wetland are expected to occur. These processes change the wetland efficiency to remove pollutants. In this study, a set of wetlands constructed to treat agricultural wastewater were analyzed in different periods to assess if there is a difference in removal efficiency of nitrogen and phosphorus. This assessment was performed by analyzing the retention rate, k and k20 values, which are variables that quantify the nutrients removal, in different periods of each employed wetland. Some of the observations demonstrated differences when comparing different periods of the wetlands. The nitrogen removal presented better performance in one of the employed wetlands when this was older. Another employed wetland has not shown a clear difference between different periods. In the wetlands with high vegetation densities, the nitrogen removal was more stable over consecutive years. The occurrence of oscillations in nitrogen removal was observed more often in the wetlands with the highest vegetation densities over consecutive years. The phosphorus removal presented no clear differences between different periods. The results suggest that the removal of nitrogen improves after wetland creation due to the growth of vegetation. In addition, they suggest that wetlands with high vegetation densities tend to oscillate the nitrogen removal more or less often according to the density of the vegetation due to the balance between denitrification and decomposition. Further, the results suggest that the removal of phosphorus remains unchanged over longer periods than the periods considered in this study (four to six years) due to the deposition of organic matter on the soils.

<div>The goal of this research was to improve crop yield and quality and enhance nutrient use efficiency of aquaponics for the development of sustainable aquaponic production system. Aquaponics is the integration of aquaculture and hydroponics by recirculating water and residual nutrients resulting from aquaculture wastewater into hydroponic crop production. The project had four objectives. The first objective was to characterize nutrient composition and accumulation in recirculating water and plant parts of tomato, basil, and lettuce grown in aquaponic systems, and to compare their growth and yield with those grown in hydroponic systems. The second objective was to determine the effects of feeding management regime on water quality, crop yield and quality, and N use efficiency for vegetable and herb production in recirculating aquaponics in comparison to hydroponics. The third objective was to optimize water-flow rate for efficient aquaponic system for maximum crop yield. The fourth objective was to investigate and compare the N and P mass balance between aquaponics and hydroponics. Four conclusions were determined that 1) Aquaponic solution was deficient in Ca and/or Mg leading to plant nutrient deficiency but sufficient or high in P; And luxuriant nutrient profiles in hydroponics are not necessary to enhance crop yield in aquaponics as long as key factors affecting crop yield are identified and properly addressed. 2) Uniform feeding regime improved water quality by reducing toxic ions and enhancing initial nutrient availability and considerably increased the yield, quality and nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) of crops in aquaponics as close or similar to those in hydroponics. 3) Flow rate is an important factor affecting water quality parameters and optimizing flow rate is essential to maximize aquaponic crop production and improve energy efficiency; High hydraulic loading rate at 3.3 m3/m2-day improved performance and yield of all crops in an aquaponics system regardless of their growth rate, but the water hydraulic loading rate for fast-growing and medium-growing crops can be reduced to 2.2 m3/m2-day without production reduction. 4) Plant species had significant influence on N and P removal and mass balance in aquaponics and hydroponics; Fruity vegetables showed better growth adaption in aquaponic system, while yields of leafy vegetables may be reduced when grown in aquaponics than hydroponics; Aquaponics is more efficient than hydroponics releasing less environmental wastes, however, N and P use efficiency in aquaponics and hydroponics can be further improved via proper management.</div><div>The important findings obtained from this research will fill the knowledge gap in aquaponic research and provide new management strategies to improve quantitative study of aquaponic crop production and new management strategies for cultivating crops in aquaponics. The findings will also greatly contribute to the commercial aquaponic development, and ultimately improve food security and resource use efficiency in the US and global agricultural production.</div>

M. Tech. (Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Technology), Vaal University of Technology / Water pollution caused by organic and inorganic contaminants represents an important ecological and health hazard. Simultaneous treatment of organic and inorganic contaminants had gradually gained great scientific interest. Advanced oxidation processes such as photocatalysis, using TiO2 as a photocatalyst, have been shown to be very robust in the removal of biorecalcitrant pollutants. These methods offer the advantage of removing the pollutants, in contrast to conventional techniques. At present, the main technical challenge that hinder its commercialization remained on the post-recovery of the photocatalyst particles after water treatment. Supporting of the photocatalyst on the adsorbent surface is important as it assists during the filtration step, reducing losses of the materials and yielding better results in degrading pollutants. To overcome this challenge, in this study composite photocatalysts of TiO2/zeolite and TiO2/silica were prepared and investigated to explore the possible application in the simultaneous removal of organic and inorganic compounds from contaminated water. The main objective of this study was to investigate the heterogeneous photocatalytic degradation of organic compounds in the presence of metal ions using composite photocatalysts. The Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), Scanning Electron Microscopy and Energy Dispersive X-ray (SEM-EDX), Raman spectroscopy (RS) and zeta potential (ZP) analyses were used to characterize the prepared composite photocatalysts. The successive composite photocatalysts were used in a semi-batch reactor under an irradiation intensity of 5.5 mW/m2 (protected by a quartz sleeve) at 25 ± 3°C for the photocatalytic degradation of synthetic textile (methyl orange) and agricultural (atrazine) wastewater in the presence of ions. The effect of operating parameters such as TiO2 composition on supporting material, particle size, composite photocatalyst loading, initial pollutant concentration and pH were optimized. The effects of inorganic salts and humic acid on dye and pesticides degradation were also studied, respectively. The performance of the photocatalyst reactor was evaluated on the basis of color removal, metal ion reduction, total organic carbon (TOC) reduction, intermediates product analysis and modeling of kinetics and isotherms. Different kinetic and isotherm models were introduced and applied in this work. Important aspects such as error functions with the optimal magnitude were used for the selection of the best suitable model. / European Union. City of Mikkeli, Finland. Water Research Commission (RSA)

This thesis deals with an agricultural wastewater treatment (liquid digestate) by membrane technology. There is a fundamental description of characteristics of membrane technology with regard to application of agricultural wastewater treatment in this thesis. Experimental device for treatment of liquid digestate is designed and it consists of three steps – microfiltration, ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis. The first step consists of four filters with different pore sizes (80, 25, 10 and 5 µm). The second step is ultrafiltration and the third and key step is reverse osmosis. In the final step monovalent ions such as NH4+ are separated. Reverse osmosis consists of two stage system which results in higher recovery. Three experiments were carried out in order to verify the efficiency of separation dissolved solids.