A Study of the Phytoremediation Process Using Water Lettuce (Pistia Stratiotes) in the Removal of Ciprofloxacin

The use of antibiotics has become imperative and unavoidable in medicine to Figureht against microbes, but the majority of these antibiotics are found in environmental ecosystems. It is revealed that the presence of these in the environment, intoxicates the bacterial ecological medium.Then, this investigated the phytoremediation abilities of Water lettuce (Pistia Stratiotes). Adolescent plants were placed in two different concentrations of Ciprofloxacin solution for 7 days. The aim was to see if the plant could remove the Ciprofloxacin, what amount of it and the effects of the drug on the plant thereafter. The concentrations were 50ppm and 10ppm of Ciprofloxacin. The result was that at 50ppm, the plants developed necrosis within 3 days and died. At 10ppm solution, water lettuce managed more than 70% removal efficiency, and also a steady growth of the plant was maintained at 0.1606 g/day. For the concentration of Ciprofloxacin, analysis of sample water was done using UV-Visible Spectroscopy and plant extract was analyzed by HPLC. The study proved that water lettuce can be used as a remediation technique for surface waters, or can be an end-of-pipe measure for pharmaceutical wastewater treatment facilities before discharge into surface waters.