Abstract: “While constructed wetlands have proved to be successful in the treatment of various wastewaters, their ability to co-treat wastewaters with different characteristics has not been thoroughly examined. To this end, four pilot-scale horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetlands were used to co-treat secondary cheese whey and hexavalent chromium. Based on the experimental results constructed wetlands proved to be effective in co-treating these two wastewaters as they achieved 100% removal of hexavalent chromium, while mean COD removal ranged between ranged between 50% and 70%.”

Keywords: constructed wetlands, horizontal subsurface flow, vegetation, hexavalent chromium, secondary cheese whey