Investigating the potential of growing crops hydroponically utilizing feed and draw solutions from fertilizer drawn forward osmosis

Environmental Sciences Europe

Research

Yasmine Abdel Maksoud¹  Fahad Kimera¹  Khaled Bahader¹  Mohamed Bassiouny¹  Hani Sewilam² 

[1] Center for Applied Research on the Environment and Sustainability (CARES), School of Science and Engineering, The American University in Cairo, P.O. Box 74, AUC Avenue, 11835, New Cairo, Egypt;UNESCO Chair in Hydrological Changes and Water Resources Management, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany;

关键词: Desalination;    Fertilizer drawn forward osmosis;    Forward osmosis;    Draw solution;    Feed solution;    Hydroponics;    Tomatoes;    Spinach;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12302-023-00770-z

 received in 2022-12-08, accepted in 2023-07-19,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

This study investigated the potential of utilizing both the draw and feed solutions resulting from fertilizer drawn forward osmosis for hydroponic crop cultivation. Synthetic brackish groundwater of 2500 ppm was used as the feed solution, whereas commercial hydroponic nutrients, sourced from a local supplier, were utilized as a draw solution. This study also investigated the potential of integrating nanofiltration with forward osmosis, but supplementing the water necessary for further dilution of draw solutions through nanofiltration. Two crops were selected, i.e., cherry tomatoes and spinach grown at different water salinities, for their economic values. The cherry tomatoes were grown in Deep Water Culture hydroponic systems, while the spinach was grown in Nutrient Film Technique systems. If this application is deemed feasible, it allows for providing a method to grow two different crops in areas associated with non-arable land and brackish groundwater. During desalination, it was observed that there were two groups of flux readings, the first with an average flux of 7 to 9 l/m2/h, and the other with an average flux of 4 to 6 l/m2/h. This was due to using the same draw solution twice; once to concentrate the feed solution to 5000 ppm, and then once more to concentrate the feed solution to 3500 ppm. It was found that while the 3500 ppm cherry tomatoes tables had the highest yield and highest number of tomatoes throughout the plants lifetime, tomatoes from freshwater tables on average weighed more by about 19%, while, on average, 5000 ppm tomatoes weighed less than 3500 ppm tomatoes by 10%. The results of the spinach demonstrated that while both control and experiment groups yielded similar number of leaves, the average yield per plant for the experiment group was higher than the control group (by 25%).

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023

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