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Acetaminophen and carbamazepine are often found in high concentrations in wastewater treatment effluent and surface waters contaminated with wastewater and reclaimed water. Conventional remediation techniques are often impractical for non-point sources and for compounds without water quality regulations. One possible remediation technique under evaluation is the use of floating islands of ornamental wetland plants.
A mass balance study was conducted to characterize the uptake of 14C-labelled acetaminophen and carbamazepine by the ornamental wetland plant, Acorus gramenius (Japanese sweetflag). Over a 14 day exposure period, 100 % of acetaminophen present in the growing solution, was taken up by the plants, with the majority occurring in the roots. However, carbamazepine removal at the end of the 14 day period was approximately 50 %. Preliminary results suggest that A. gramenius grown in floating islands may be useful for removing acetaminophen from contaminated surface water. Future research will evaluate the uptake potential for other contaminants with differing hydrophobicity to try to identify optimal properties for uptake.
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