Abstract

• Wastewater treatment technologies are essential, as water pollution is a major environmental concern. A natural treatment system is one of the most suitable treatment technologies, and it is a process of purifying contaminated water by growing aquatic plants that have the ability to absorb pollutants. This paper aims at investigating the removal efficiency (%) of brewery effluents (distillery effluents) using water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes). The treatment process in the present study was operated at the specified time duration, i.e., two hours, four hours, eight hours, one day, two days, four days and eight days. The physical and chemical characteristics, namely color, total dissolved solids (TDS), total suspended solids (TSS), conductivity, pH, biological oxygen demand (BOD5), and chemical oxygen demand (COD) of the effluent samples before and after water hyacinth treatment were analyzed at the ISO TECH laboratory in Insein Township, Yangon. The physical and chemical parameters of the wastewater from the brewery are color (132 ± 2 TCU), total dissolved solids (1280 ± 4 mg/L), total suspended solids (633 ± 4.04 mg/L), pH (7.97 ± 0.19), conductivity (1806 ± 10.15μS/cm), biological oxygen demand (127 ± 8.62 mg/L), and chemical oxygen demand (196 ± 8.08 mg/L). The findings showed that color, TSS, and BOD5 before treatment were higher than the guideline values for effluent. After eight days of treatment with natural plants, specifically water hyacinths, all analytical parameters were found to be well below the guidelines.