Elsevier

Water Research

Volume 47, Issue 2, 1 February 2013, Pages 769-780
Water Research

Performance evaluation of different horizontal subsurface flow wetland types by characterization of flow behavior, mass removal and depth-dependent contaminant load

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2012.10.051Get rights and content

Abstract

For several pilot-scale constructed wetlands (CWs: a planted and unplanted gravel filter) and a hydroponic plant root mat (operating at two water levels), used for treating groundwater contaminated with BTEX, the fuel additive MTBE and ammonium, the hydrodynamic behavior was evaluated by means of temporal moment analysis of outlet tracer breakthrough curves (BTCs): hydraulic indices were related to contaminant mass removal. Detailed investigation of flow within the model gravel CWs allowed estimation of local flow rates and contaminant loads within the CWs. Best hydraulics were observed for the planted gravel filter (number of continuously stirred tank reactors N = 11.3, dispersion number = 0.04, Péclet number = 23). The hydroponic plant root mat revealed lower N and pronounced dispersion tendencies, whereby an elevated water table considerably impaired flow characteristics and treatment efficiencies. Highest mass removals were achieved by the plant root mat at low level: 98% (544 mg m−2 d−1), 78% (54 mg m−2 d−1) and 74% (893 mg m−2 d−1) for benzene, MTBE and ammonium–nitrogen, respectively. Within the CWs the flow behavior was depth-dependent, with the planting and the position of the outlet tube being key factors resulting in elevated flow rate and contaminant flux immediately below the densely rooted porous media zone in the planted CW, and fast bottom flow in the unplanted reference.

Highlights

► Plants improve the contaminant removal efficiency in the gravel CW. ► The hydroponic plant root mat achieves better contaminant removal than the planted gravel CW. ► Plants induce flow and thus contaminant flux into the root zone of the gravel CW. ► Local residence time distributions allow to observe dead zones and preferential flow paths.

Introduction

Constructed wetlands (CWs) have proven to be an efficient ecological technology for the treatment of various kinds of contaminated waters (Williams, 2002; Haberl et al., 2003; Kadlec and Wallace, 2008), including domestic and agricultural wastewater (Konnerup et al., 2009; Vymazal and Kröpfelová, 2009), landfill leachate (Bulc, 2006; Yalcuk and Ugurlu, 2009), industrial effluents (Vymazal, 2009) and groundwater contaminated with organic chemicals (Braeckevelt et al., 2008; Seeger et al., 2011a). The use of CWs has been successfully tested in pilot- (Braeckevelt et al., 2011) and field-scale (Ferro et al., 2002; Moore et al., 2002) applications, providing data on overall contaminant removal efficiency on the basis of either concentrations or loads.

CW treatment efficiency primarily depends on the contact time between the contaminated water and the filter material, including biota, as longer residence times enhance contaminant turnover (Werner and Kadlec, 1996). Hence, the characterization of hydraulic flow in CWs is crucial for the evaluation and optimization of system designs and performances (Persson et al., 1999). Moreover, detailed knowledge on flow behavior is essential for the validation and improvement of existing models. The hydraulic characterization of CWs is mostly based on tracer experiments, where the analysis of outlet breakthrough curves (BTCs) using the temporal moment method allows the calculation of the CWs' flow characteristic parameters, such as the mean residence time (τ), porosity (θ), variance (σ2), and dispersion parameters. These system-specific parameters may reveal whether the CW is actually operating with ideal flow, short-circuiting, or dead zones, and allow for a comparison between differently designed and operated CWs (Werner and Kadlec, 1996; García et al., 2004; Holland et al., 2004). Since the connection between hydraulic residence time and treatment efficiency has been recognized, many studies have already evaluated the effects of wetland design parameters (e.g. aspect ratio, inlet/outlet configuration, filter medium size, or plant development) and operational modes on the flow behavior or the removal efficiency (García et al., 2005; Kjellin et al., 2007; Ascuntar Ríos et al., 2009; Su et al., 2009; Hijosa-Valsero et al., 2010). Nevertheless, investigations that simultaneously encompass the hydraulic characterization of different CW systems, the change of hydraulic parameters due to operational mode adaptation, and the respective contaminant removal efficiency are rare (Ascuntar Ríos et al., 2009). Most studies evaluate treatment efficiency based on the black box concept, only focusing on overall removal rates. Some studies additionally provide contaminant concentrations of the pore water. However, loads within the wetland have not been described previously, given that actual flow at the sampling points was unknown.

Therefore, the goal of our work was to evaluate the flow characteristics of various pilot-scale horizontal subsurface flow CWs (two conventional wetlands with a gravel filter (planted and unplanted) and a plant root mat system without gravel matrix) and to relate the hydraulic parameters obtained from tracer tests to the achieved treatment efficiencies. For the plant root mat, the effect of low and high water level on both the hydraulic parameters and the pollutant removal was also investigated. Furthermore, local flow rates and local contaminant loads were assessed for the gravel-based CWs in order to identify preferential flow paths and zones with enhanced contaminant flux. The analysis is based upon local tracer BTCs monitored at various sampling points in the porous media.

Section snippets

Constructed wetland design

The study was carried out at the so-called CoTra (Compartment Transfer) research site in Leuna, Germany, where six pilot-scale horizontal subsurface flow (HSSF) CWs were set up during 2007 in order to evaluate the optimized CW design for the remediation of the local groundwater, which is contaminated with benzene (∼20 mg L−1), methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) (∼3.7 mg L−1) and ammonium (57 mg L−1) (Seeger et al., 2011a,b). All CWs consisted of steel basins (5 m length × 1.1 m width × 0.6 m

Normalized residence time distribution

Transferring time and concentration to the dimensionless flow-weighted time variable Φ = Vout(t)/Vsys and normalized concentration c′(Φ) = c(ti) Vsys/Mout, respectively, displays dimensionless BTCs, which allow the direct visual comparison between differently designed and operated CWs (Holland et al., 2004; Wahl et al., 2010). This procedure also accounts for different tracer mass that might have been applied to the CWs (Werner and Kadlec, 1996; Holland et al., 2004; Headley and Kadlec, 2007). Φ

Results and discussion

The results and discussion part is divided into three sections. The first Section 4.1 addresses the evaluation of the hydraulic flow behavior of the gravel CWs and the hydroponic plant root mat by analyzing outlet tracer BTCs using the temporal moment method. The second part (4.2) is about the relation between the goodness of the hydraulic flow behavior measured by the hydraulic indices and the achieved purification efficiencies. The third paragraph (4.3) presents contaminant loads within the

Conclusion

In the present work we present a detailed evaluation of the hydraulic performance and the load removal efficiency of several HSSF CWs (a planted and unplanted gravel-based CW) and a hydroponic plant root mat system (operated at two water levels) treating gasoline and ammonium contaminated groundwater. We investigated the flow behavior following up the state-of-the-art procedure that comprises the determination of system-specific overall hydraulic indices by analyzing outlet tracer response

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ within the scope of the SAFIRA II Research Programme (Revitalization of Contaminated Land and Groundwater at Megasites, subproject ‘‘Compartment Transfer – CoTra”), and the European Union (European Commission, FP7 Contract No. 265946, Minotaurus). The authors thank F. Löper, P. Weiβbach and M. Schröter for their assistance in the field and laboratory.

Glossary

Ain
area perpendicular to the flow direction [L²]
Asurf
surface area [L²]
c′(Φ)
normalized concentration [–]
ctracer
fluorescein concentration of the tracer solution [M L³]
cx,y
contaminant concentration at the sampling position (x,y) [M L³]
D
dispersion coefficient [L² t−1]
Dn
dispersion number [–]
fOC
organic carbon content [%]
h
water table [L]
Kd
solid water distribution coefficient [L3 M–1]
KOC
organic carbon water distribution coefficient [L3 M–1]
KOW
octanol water distribution coefficient [–]
L
length of the

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