Textile wastewater is contaminated by reactive dye causing unattractive levels of wastewater color, high pH and high salt content when discharged into public water systems. Decolorization of textile wastewater by plant, phytoremediation, is an alternative, sustainable method which is suitable for long term operation. Narrow-leaved cattails are one species of wetland plant with efficiency for decolorizing and remediating textile wastewater. In addition, chemical oxygen demand (COD) can be lowered and dye residue can be removed. The plant also showed a good salt tolerance even after being exposed to a salt solution for 15 days. The narrow-leaved cattails were set up in a constructed wetland model with a vertical flow system operating from bottom to top for synthetic reactive dye wastewater (SRDW) removal. Narrow-leaved cattails could achieve the removal of SRDW at approximately 0.8 gSRDW m−2 day−1. Decolorization of SRDW by this plant was approximately 60%. The advantage of this method is that it is suitable for textile wastewater management and improvement of wetland. These plants could lower COD, remove dye, sodium and total dissolved solids (TDS) whereas other biological and chemical methods could not remove TDS and dye in the same time. These results suggested that the spongy cell structure of this plant has the ability to absorb large amounts of water and nutrients. Physico-chemical analysis revealed increasing amounts of sulfur, silicon, iron and calcium in the plant leafs and roots after exposure to wastewater. Proteins or amide groups in the plant might help in textile dye removal. Regarding decolorization, this plant accumulates dye in the intercellular space and still grows in this SRDW condition. Hence, it can be noted here that narrow-leaved cattails are efficient for textile dye wastewater treatment.
