Water quality improvement with artificial floating islands

As the natural purification of the traditional artificial floating island is very slow, the purpose of this research is to explore the efficiency of the green energy artificial floating island (GAFI) to improve water quality. We constructed experimental models near the bank of Lize Lake at MingDao University in Taiwan, where the surrounding waters and wastewater from the dormitories served as the sources for water purification and treatment. In the field of the experimental model, three water tanks, each of which is 165 cm in depth and 130 cm in diameter, with 2 tons of water in total, were buried as the experimental containers. The GAFI area is 60 x 60 cm equipped with three kinds of aquatic plants: Typha orientalis Presl, Eleocharis dulcis and Juncus effuses, as the vegetation purification plants, and an aerator device powered by solar power. According to our experimental results, GAFI can effectively break down stratified water into homogenized water and inhibit algae growth. The dissolved oxygen and oxygen reduction potential were increasing when the GAFI was used, and the NH3-N, NO3-N and NO2-N were effectively decreased. As GAFI can quickly enhance water quality, it is worth promoting its application for water landscapes and environmental conservation in the future. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.