Effect of substrates on the potential of Phragmites australis to accumulate and translocate selected contaminants from landfill leachate

The choice of constructed wetlands substrate is a very important issue, there is still a lack of studies that analyse the effect of different types of substrate on the efficiency of the accumulate and translocate contaminants from landfill leachate. Therefore, the objectives of study were to evaluate the effect of substrate on the potential of Phragmites australis to accumulate and translocate selected contaminants from leachate. The lowest translocation was recorded for Fe and Cu, and the highest for K and Ni. Translocation between root and shoots for most parameters (total Kjeldahl nitrogen, total phosphorus, K and Mn) was high (TF > 1.0). However, for Fe, Cu, Cr and Ni translocation was low in most variants (TF < 1.0). Only for Cr there were statistically significant differences between the substrates. The obtained bioaccumulation factor values for Cu, Cr and Ni show that P.australis does not have a good ability to phytoaccumulate heavy metals from leachate.

Automated summary

The choice of substrate in constructed wetlands plays a crucial role in the accumulation and translocation of contaminants from landfill leachate. This study evaluated the effect of substrate on the potential of Phragmites australis to accumulate and translocate selected contaminants. The results showed that translocation was lowest for Fe and Cu, and highest for K and Ni. Overall, P. australis exhibited low phytoaccumulation ability for heavy metals such as Cu, Cr, and Ni.