Impact of Environmental Factors (pH, Temperature, and Aeration) on the Efficiency of Phyto-Adsorption for Wastewater Treatment

Phyto-adsorption still is some lack of understanding in how environmental conditions affect treatment efficiency. Phyto-adsorption has been proposed as a cost-effective and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional wastewater approaches; however, these have not gained widespread use due to lack of full-understanding between environmental parameters and process efficiency. This paper systematically explored the influence of pH, temperature and aeration on phyto-adsorption performance according to fitted computational model of modified Langmuir isotherms with empirical environmental correction factors. We used a full simulation framework to test 525 combinations of parameters within a pH range of 7.0–9.0, temperature (20–40°C), and range of aeration rates at 1.0 –3.0 L/min; Depend on the adsorption result, it could be found that the maximum and minimum adsorption capacity was 0.1438 mg/g under optimal conditionand 0.0476 kg/mg respectively (202% of linear dynamic range). The greatest single factor was temperature (87.7%), followed by aeration (36.7%) and pH (19.0%). It discovered large synergistic effects, i.e. performance gains of joint optimization were much higher than the sum of individual parameter improvements. Sensitivity of temperature as the most salient condition for the enhancement of adsorption capacity was revealed in sensitivity analysis, and aeration arose as an explicative factor to operate the system tuning on-line. The model results agreed very well with experimental data available in the literature and demonstrated consistent linear behaviour at all operating ranges. These results are of great significance for rational construction and optimization of phyto-adsorption systems, reflecting that efficiency improvement would be considerable if the environmental process could be controlled deliberately. The findings highlight the requirement of multiparameter optimization strategies rather than single factor modifications to take full advantage of phytoremediation technologies for sustainable wastewater treatment purposes.