Development of a sustainable system of phytoremediation and bioethanol with E. crassipes

Abstract

Eichhornia crassipes is an aquatic plant, present in tropical climates and due to poor management of domestic wastewater in aquatic ecosystems, its reproduction is prominent, therefore, in contaminated water bodies, the biomass of this plant is very abundant and hence its final disposal entails great economic costs. Moreover, all this biomass is currently not used in a sustainable way. This plant could use for different process of type environmental, due to its proven use in the recuperations of waters contaminated with heavy metals and also it is could use in the productions of biofuels, due to high content of cellulose in your biomass. The objective of this research is to develop a sustainable process between phytoremediation and bioethanol production with the biomass of Eichhornia crassipes, evaluating the incidence of lead (II) adhered to the biomass of this plant in the production of bioethanol. Materials and methods: a system was installed to evaluate phytoremediation with E. crassipes with water loaded with Lead (II), determining the effectiveness of this plant to remove this heavy metal even if it is alive in a water body. After this process, we proceeded to take the lead (II) loaded biomass to the bioreactors to evaluate the bioethanol production, evaluating three types of biomass, one without lead (II) attached and the other two with lead (II) attached to the structure of its plant. There was a 30 % decrease in ethanol production from Eichhornia crassipes due to the presence of lead (II). Concluding that E. crassipes biomass could be fully used for phytoremediation processes of heavy metal contaminated water.