Application of aquatic weeds as carbon sink in wastewater treatment

摘要

Greenhouse gas emissions and climate change will have major consequences for human life. Therefore it is relevant to develop technologies to mitigate the CO_2 emissions. Photosynthesis is a basic and relatively cheap process to sequester CO_2. In this paper the application of appropriate aquatic weeds as potential carbon sink is discussed. Based on an annual nitrogen excretion through sewage of 4.75 kg N per capita and a CO_2 fixation of 20 kg CO_2 per kg N the potential CO_2 sequestration rate is 100 kg CO_2 per capita per year. This value is about 2% of the total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. This shows that wastewater treatment with aquatic weeds can have a modest contribution in the development of sustainable treatment processes.