title: The use of microbial-earthworm ecofilters for wastewater treatment with special attention to influencing factors in performance: A review.
abstract: With the unique advantages of lower operational and maintenance cost, the use of microbial-earthworm ecofilters (MEEs) for the wastewater treatment has been increasing rapidly in the recent years. This paper provided an overview of the research activities on the use of MEEs for removing pollutants from various wastewater throughout the world. However, the long-term effective treatment performance and sustainable operation of this system still remain a challenge since the treatment performance would be affected by design parameters, operational conditions, and environmental factors. In order to promote the treatment performance, therefore, this paper also provided and summarized the influencing factors of pollutants removal in MEEs. The design parameters and operational conditions of MEEs include earthworm species and load, filter media type, hydraulic loading rate, nutrient load, packing bed height, chemical factors and temperature. Lastly, this review highlighted the further research on these issues to improve performance and sustainability of MEEs.
authors.affiliation: College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, PR China; Key Laboratory of Environmental Biology and Pollution Control (Hunan University), Ministry of Education, Changsha 410082, PR China.
authors.forename: Luhua
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, PR China; Key Laboratory of Environmental Biology and Pollution Control (Hunan University), Ministry of Education, Changsha 410082, PR China. Electronic address: liuyunguo_hnu@163.com.
authors.forename: Yunguo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, PR China; Key Laboratory of Environmental Biology and Pollution Control (Hunan University), Ministry of Education, Changsha 410082, PR China; College of Natural Resources and Environment, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, PR China.
authors.forename: Xinjiang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, PR China; Key Laboratory of Environmental Biology and Pollution Control (Hunan University), Ministry of Education, Changsha 410082, PR China.
authors.forename: Guangming
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.affiliation: College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, PR China; Key Laboratory of Environmental Biology and Pollution Control (Hunan University), Ministry of Education, Changsha 410082, PR China.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, PR China; Key Laboratory of Environmental Biology and Pollution Control (Hunan University), Ministry of Education, Changsha 410082, PR China.
authors.forename: Lu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, PR China; Key Laboratory of Environmental Biology and Pollution Control (Hunan University), Ministry of Education, Changsha 410082, PR China.
authors.forename: Xiaofei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.affiliation: College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, PR China; Key Laboratory of Environmental Biology and Pollution Control (Hunan University), Ministry of Education, Changsha 410082, PR China.
authors.forename: Binyan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: School of Metallurgy and Environment, Central South University, Changsha 410083, PR China.
authors.forename: Shaobo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, PR China; Key Laboratory of Environmental Biology and Pollution Control (Hunan University), Ministry of Education, Changsha 410082, PR China.
authors.forename: Simian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004867:Equipment Design; D005191:Family Characteristics; D007220:Industrial Waste; D059013:Microbial Consortia; D009835:Oligochaeta; D013696:Temperature; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000191:economics / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D062065:Wastewater / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry; D014873:Water Pollutants / Q000032:analysis / Q000302:isolation & purification* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D007220:Industrial Waste; D062065:Wastewater; D014873:Water Pollutants
keywords: Contamination removal; Influence factors; Microbial-earthworm ecofilters; Performance enhancement; Wastewater treatment