Physical and morphological characterization of heavy metal adsorption by floating manmade wetland / Mohd Ghazali Mohd Khomaruzaman

Ipomoea aquatic (water based plant) as a natural treatment was chosen as research subject. Two type of analyzation was classified which is morphology characterization, to analyze the physical sight observable change (color spectrum, shape, size) on each of the plant's limb (leaf, stem and root) and heavy metal analysis which is to find out the containment of selected trace heavy metals (Cr, K and P) on the plant. This observation was done on three tanks where tank 1 stands for blank (without K2Cr207), tank 2 for submerged influent entrance with K2Cr207 and tank 3 for uplifted influent entrance with K2Cr207. At the end of the research it was found that for the morphology characterization root samples shows the highest size change on each of the tank compared to stem and leaf samples. While for color spectrum analysis, slight change was observed in tank 3 where it appears for certain parts of the plant to change color from green to yellowish pale green on most of the leaf and stalks within 5 days. The chlorophyll decolorize symptoms was also observed during the chlorophyll analysis where the color changes observed on each samples of each tanks. Heavy metal analysis results in domination of root samples since it is having the highest amount of heavy metals nearly for each analysis except for P analysis in tank 2 and 3 where phosphorus appeared to be the highest element contained in stem samples.