Nanobubble-enhanced floating wetlands.
Vetipont™ floating treatment wetlands do the biology. NBT nanobubble aeration removes the oxygen bottleneck. Together they treat sewage, dam water and industrial effluent — passively, at a fraction of the cost of activated sludge.
A biological engine, finally given all the oxygen it needs.
Floating treatment wetlands are only as fast as the dissolved oxygen around their roots. In a septic municipal pond, that supply runs out — and treatment stalls. Pairing Vetipont™ with NBT solves exactly that limit.
Vetiver floating treatment wetland
Sterile Monto vetiver grown hydroponically on modular floating pontoons. Roots reaching up to 780 mm hang directly in the effluent, carrying the biofilm that does the work.
- Dense root mat = vast surface for treatment microbes
- Direct uptake of nitrogen and phosphorus
- Tolerant to pH 3.0–12.5 and elevated heavy metals
- Retrofits into existing ponds — no civil rebuild
Nanobubble aeration
Solar-powered generators inject nanobubbles under 200 nm. Being near-neutrally buoyant, they resist rising, stay suspended for days, and dissolve oxygen far more efficiently than coarse-bubble aeration.
- Drives dissolved oxygen to supersaturation
- Lifts redox potential (ORP) to oxidise and disinfect
- Destabilises algae and oxidises H₂S odour
- Runs off PV — immune to load-shedding
→ The result: a pond that flips from anaerobic to aerobic, with the vetiver rhizosphere doing the biology at full capacity.
Why the two together beat either one alone.
Living surface area
The vetiver root mat and raft matrix give treatment bacteria an enormous, stable surface to colonise — a fixed-film reactor grown from a plant, not built from plastic media.
Delivered to the root zone
Nanobubbles carry oxygen straight into the rhizosphere and hold it there. Where a normal FTW is oxygen-starved below the surface, NBT keeps the whole column aerobic.
The aerobic engine runs hot
With oxygen no longer limiting, the root-zone biofilm accelerates: rapid nitrification, BOD oxidation and organics breakdown. Ammonia and carbon loads fall fast.
Nutrients out, water clear
Vetiver takes up nitrogen and phosphorus directly while the biofilm couples nitrification with denitrification. High DO plus raft shade suppress algae and lift the effluent to licence quality.
The numbers water managers ask for.
Headline figures: Vetipont™ 14-day trial. Ammonia / DO ranges from hydroponic and field vetiver-system studies. Site results vary with load and configuration.
Nitrogen & phosphorus
Vetiver removes soluble N and P quickly on its own; in field wetlands, total nitrogen has fallen by up to 99% and phosphorus by 85% through successive root rows. NBT keeps the nitrifiers oxygenated so those reductions hold under real municipal load.
Pathogens & algae
E. coli and faecal coliform counts drop sharply as the biofilm and raised ORP go to work, while high dissolved oxygen and surface shading collapse the blue-green algae blooms that plague eutrophic ponds and dams.
BOD, TSS & pH
Vetiver stands measurably reduce biochemical oxygen demand and suspended solids, mitigate odour, and stabilise pH — the same parameters that push ageing pond works out of licence compliance.
Lower cost, lower risk, no rebuild.
Low CAPEX & OPEX
A modular retrofit into existing ponds, with running costs in the order of ~1% of CAPEX per year each for operations and maintenance.
Solar-powered
NBT aeration runs off PV with battery backup — no grid connection, and no exposure to load-shedding or tariff hikes.
No specialist operators
Weekly inspections and a bi-annual foliage trim by casual labour — no full-time, highly qualified plant technicians required.
Modular & scalable
Size to the nutrient load and expand simply by adding pontoons — capacity grows with demand, not ahead of it.
Compliance & risk
Mitigates the risk of untreated-effluent discharge and lifts N, P, coliform, TSS and pH toward licence limits — with no breakdown downtime.
Recovers value
Harvested vetiver serves as fodder or mulch, the rafts can carry the solar array, and the system rehabilitates rather than just discharges.
Deployed, monitored, patented.
The Vetipont™ approach builds on two decades of vetiver-system wastewater research across Australia, China and Thailand — from septic and abattoir effluent to landfill leachate — now paired with modern nanobubble aeration and engineered for South African conditions by Clean Energy Consultants.
Where does it fit? →
Municipal ponds, eutrophic dams, piggery and abattoir effluent, landfill leachate, mine and process water — see the full sector breakdown.
Bring NBT + Vetipont™ to your site.
Send us your pond configuration, flow and effluent quality. We'll assess feasibility, size the system and model the capital and operating case for your works.