Abstract

TEJEDA, Allan et al. Efficiency of Three Hybrid Wetland Systems for Carbamazepine Removal. Tecnol. cienc. agua [online]. 2015, vol.6, n.6, pp.19-31. ISSN 2007-2422.

In general, it has been found that constructed wetlands are effective in different levels for pharmaceutical removal; however, there are cases with very low removal efficiencies such as that of carbamazepine. The aim of this study was to evaluate the mass removal efficiencies of the drug in three hybrid constructed wetland systems with twostage treatments, including horizontal subsurface flow wetlands (HSSF), vertical subsurface flow wetlands (VSSF) and stabilization ponds (SP). The three different configurations were: HSSF-SP, HSSF-VSSF and VSSF-HSSF, which were identified as SI, SII and SIII respectively. In addition, measurements of DO, Eh, pH, EC, ET and temperature were taken in situ in order to know the system conditions. The results revealed significant differences (p < 0.05) among the three hybrid system for mass removal efficiencies, with an average of 60 ± 4.45% for SI, 55 ± 4.45% for SII and 36 ± 4.45% for SIII. The systems I and II, were statistically similar and also, both were different to SIII. In general, the higher efficiencies were obtained in systems with DO low concentrations, Eh negative values and pH conditions near to 8, which mainly occur in horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetlands. In contrast, aerobic conditions demonstrated less efficiency. These results confirm the ability of constructed wetlands to remove carbamazepine and show that it is possible to increase its mass removal efficiency by combining different types of wetlands.

Keywords : Horizontal sub-surface flow constructed wetland; vertical sub-surface flow constructed wetland; carbamazepine; hybrid systems; operating conditions.

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