Swine Wastewater Treatment in Constructed Wetland Systems: Hydraulic and Kinetic Modeling

The use of constructed wetland systems (CWS) is presented as an alternative for the treatment of effluents since these have reduced implementation costs and relative ease of operation. The present research was undertaken to evaluate to study the hydrodynamic and the fitting of first-order mathematical kinetic models for the removal of pollutants in CWS. Three CWS were built, using expanded clay as filter support: one cultivated with Polygonum punctatum (CWSw), another cultivated with Chrysopogon zizanioides (CWSV), and a control unit (CWSc). The actual retention time was 3.12 days in the CWSc, whereas, in the CWSw and CWSv, we observed values of 4.14 and 4.11 days, respectively. The dispersion values were high in all CWS. The values of chemical oxygen demand (COD) across the length of the CWS were used to fit the kinetic models that describe the first-order decay of organic matter over the CWS. The models that showed a better fit to the experimental data were the plug-flow with residual concentration, the continuous stirred tank reactor, and Shepherd's models.