Comparing the Refinability of Hospital Wastewater by Vetiver and Typical Straw Plants in Tropical Regions

In recent years, crisis of water shortage has become a serious problem in many countries. In this regard, the use of treated wastewater in natural or artificial method in agriculture and the like, has been proposed as an important and practical solution. The natural purification method by the use of artificial canebrakes, compared with other methods of treatment is an appropriate method because of its low cost, and also, because of easy navigation, the requirements of low technology and low energy consumption. Several herbs have been used to increase the efficiency canebrakes which including special plants to purify such wastewater is Vetiveria that has unique genetic, morphological and physiological characteristics. Due to the limited knowledge of the plant's industrial wastewater treatment, in this study, a comparison of filterablity of hospital wastewater was done between Vetivaria and bulrush in tropical areas. This experimental study was done in 2013 in the hot season, summer. In this study, was made two pilot glass with dimensions of 50*60*100 Cm. A mixture of soil, sand, gravel, clay soil was selected. The irrigation method in this study was subsurface and continuous. First, hospital wastewater via a 220 liter tank as the primary sedimentation retention time and with time of 2 hours entered into bed with a hydraulic retention time of 4 days to discharge 85/0 liters per hour. To evaluate the efficiency of each plant in the treatment of hospital wastewater, chemical parameters including (PH, TP, TN, TSS, BOD5, COD)were measured according to standard methods of measuring.. Analysis of the data was done by the use of t-test and Mann-Whitney and SPSS software. Based on the finding of this study, percentage of removal parameter(Bod5,Tss,Tn,Tp) by plant Vetiveria was (88.54,95.71,93.93,99.80) and for bulrush was (82.54,91.13,86.64,99.28). Due to the unique characteristics of Vetiveria, such as high resistance against unfavorable environmental conditions and its higher efficiency than bulrush, this plant is recommended for the treatment of hospital wastewater.