ORIGINAL RESEARCH
The Fate of Ammonium in Integrated
Vertical-flow Constructed Wetlands
Using Stable Isotope Technique
Yun Hu1,2, Feng He1, Long Wang1,2, Jian Sun1,2, Tao Huang1,2, Zhenbin Wu1
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1State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China
2University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Submission date: 2015-10-28
Final revision date: 2016-01-19
Acceptance date: 2016-01-22
Publication date: 2016-05-25
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2016;25(3):1027-1032
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ABSTRACT
The fate of ammonium (NH4+) was investigated using the 15N tracer stable isotope technique in
integrated vertical-flow constructed wetlands (IVCWs). Two types of IVCW systems were built: unplanted
IVCWs (control) and planted IVCWs. The results showed that a high NH4+ removal efficiency (95.4%) in
the planted IVCWs. Plants not only removed NH4+ by direct uptake (13.6±0.7%) but also improved the NH4+
removal capacity of IVCWs, compared with the control. Besides plant uptake, microbial conversion was the
dominant mechanism of NH4+ removal in IVCWs, and a large proportion (75.2-85.6%) of added NH4+ may
be permanently removed via anammox and nitrification-denitrification processes in IVCWs.