Exploring polystyrene weathering behavior: From surface traits to micro(nano)plastics and additives release.

Plastic weathering in the natural environment is a dynamic and complex process, where the release of microplastics, nanoplastics and additives poses potential threats to ecosystems. Understanding the release of different weathering products from plastics is crucial for predicting and assessing the environmental hazards of plastics. This study systematically explored these phenomena by exposing polystyrene (PS) to UV irradiation and mechanical agitation for different durations (1 day, 5 days, 10 days, 20 days). The degree of aging, yellowing, brittleness, and the abundance of carbonyl (CO) functional groups in PS were all gradually increasing over time. The weathering pattern of PS surfaces manifested as initial particle oxidation followed by later cracks or flakes formation. The release of products was positively correlated with the aging degree of plastics, as well as among the various released products. Laser infrared and Raman tests indicated that, for microplastics, the size range of 10-20 µm consistently dominated over time, while the primary size range of nanoplastics shifted towards smaller sizes. Additives and other soluble products were prone to release from weathering plastics, with 20 different chemicals detected after 20 d. The release of plastic additives was closely related to aging time, additive type, and quantity. This study contributes to our understanding of the weathering process of plastics, clarifies the release patterns of products over time, and the relationships among different products. It helps predict and assess the environmental pollution caused by plastics.

A combined evaluation of the characteristics and antibiotic resistance induction potential of antibiotic wastewater during the treatment process.

Antibiotic wastewater contains a variety of pollutant stressors that can induce and promote antibiotic resistance (AR) when released into the environment. Although these substances are mostly in concentrations lower than those known to induce AR individually, it is possible that antibiotic wastewater discharge might still promote the AR transmission risk via additive or synergistic effects. However, the comprehensive effect of antibiotic wastewater on AR development has rarely been evaluated, and its treatment efficiency remains unknown. Here, samples were collected from different stages of a cephalosporin production wastewater treatment plant, and the potential AR induction effect of their chemical mixtures was explored through the exposure of the antibiotic-sensitive Escherichia coli K12 strain. Incubation with raw cephalosporin production wastewater significantly promoted mutation rates (3.6 × 103-9.3 × 103-fold) and minimum inhibition concentrations (6.0-6.7-fold) of E. coli against ampicillin and chloramphenicol. This may be attributed to the inhibition effect and oxidative stress of cephalosporin wastewater on E. coli. The AR induction effect of cephalosporin wastewater decreased after the coagulation sedimentation treatment and was completely removed after the full treatment process. A Pearson correlation analysis revealed that the reduction in the AR induction effect had a strong positive correlation with the removal of organics and biological toxicity. This indicates that the antibiotic wastewater treatment had a collaborative processing effect of conventional pollutants, toxicity, and the AR induction effect. This study illustrates the potential AR transmission risk of antibiotic wastewater and highlights the need for its adequate treatment.

Stimulating anaerobic digestion to degrade recalcitrant organic pollutants: Potential role of conductive materials-led direct interspecies electron transfer.

This review aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the potential of CMs-dominated DIET in the degradation of recalcitrant organic pollutants in AD. The review covers the mechanisms and efficiencies of recalcitrant organic pollutant degradation by CMs-dominated DIET, the comparison of degradation pathways between DIET and chemical treatment, recent insights on DIET-enhanced degradation, and the evaluation of the potential and future development of CMs-dominated DIET. The review emphasizes the importance of coupled syntrophic microorganisms, electron flux, and physicochemical properties of CMs in enhancing the degradation performance of AD. Additionally, it highlights the advantages of DIET-led syntrophic metabolism over traditional oxidation technologies in terms of environmental friendliness and efficiency. Finally, the review acknowledges the potential risks associated with introducing CMs into AD systems and provides guidance for waste treatment and energy recovery.

Enhanced denitrification of the AO-MBBR system used for expressway service area sewage treatment: A new perspective on decentralized wastewater treatment.

Decentralized wastewater treatment warrants considerable development in numerous countries and regions. Owing to the unique characteristics of high ammonia nitrogen concentrations and low carbon/nitrogen ratio, nitrogen removal is a key challenge in treating expressway service area sewage. In this study, an anoxic/oxic-moving bed biofilm reactor (A/O-MBBR) and a traditional A/O bioreactor were continuously operated for 115 days and their outcomes were compared to investigate the enhancement effect of carriers on the total nitrogen removal (TN) for expressway service area sewage. Results revealed that A/O-MBBR required lower dissolved oxygen, exhibited higher tolerance toward harsh conditions, and demonstrated better shock load resistance than traditional A/O bioreactor. The TN removal load of A/O-MBBR reached 181.5 g‧N/(m3‧d), which was 15.24% higher than that of the A/O bioreactor. Furthermore, under load shock resistance, the TN removal load of A/O-MBBR still reached 327.0 g‧N/(m3‧d), with a TN removal efficiency of above 80%. Moreover, kinetics demonstrated that the denitrification rate of the A/O-MBBR was 121.9% higher than that of the A/O bioreactor, with the anoxic tank biofilm contributing 60.9% of the total denitrification rate. Community analysis results revealed that the genera OLB8, uncultured_f_Saprospiraceae and OLB12 were the dominant in biofilm loaded on carriers, and OLB8 was the key for enhanced denitrification. FAPROTAX and PICRUSt2 analyses confirmed that more bacteria associated with nitrogen metabolism were enriched by the A/O-MBBR carriers through full denitrification metabolic pathway and dissimilatory nitrate reduction pathway. This study offers a perspective into the development of cost-effective and high-efficiency treatment solutions for expressway service area sewage.

A biological strategy for sulfide control in sewers: Removing sulfide by sulfur-oxidizing bacteria.

Sulfide produced from sewers is considered one of the dominant threats to public health and sewer lifespan due to its toxicity and corrosiveness. In this study, we developed an environmentally friendly strategy for gaseous sulfide control by enriching indigenous sulfur-oxidizing bacteria (SOB) from sewer sediment. Ceramics acted as bio-carriers for immobilizing SOB for practical use in a lab-scale sewer reactor. 16 S rRNA gene sequences revealed that the SOB consortium was successfully enriched, with Thiobacillus, Pseudomonas, and Alcaligenes occupying a dominant abundance of 64.7% in the microbial community. Metabolic pathway analysis in different acclimatization stages indicates that microorganisms could convert thiosulfate and sulfide into elemental sulfur after enrichment and immobilization. A continuous experiment in lab-scale sewer reactors confirmed an efficient result for sulfide removal with hydrogen sulfide reduction of 43.9% and 85.1% under high-sulfur load and low-sulfur load conditions, respectively. This study shed light on the promising application for sewer sulfide control by biological sulfur oxidation strategy.

Development, dilemma and potential strategies for the application of nanocatalysts in wastewater catalytic ozonation: A review.

With the continuous development of nanomaterials in recent years, the application of nanocatalysts in catalytic ozone oxidation has attracted more and more researchers' attention due to their excellent catalytic properties. In this review, we systematically summarized the current research status of nanocatalysts mainly involving material categories, mechanisms and catalytic efficiency. Based on summary and analysis, we found most of the reported nanocatalysts were in the stage of laboratory research, which was caused by the nanocatalysts defects such as easy aggregation, difficult separation, and easy leakage. These defects might result in severe resource waste, economic loss and potentially adverse effects imposed on the ecosystem and human health. Aiming at solving these defects, we further analyzed the reasons and the existing reports, and revealed that coupling nano-catalyst and membrane, supported nanocatalysts and magnetic nanocatalysts had promising potential in solving these problems and promoting the actual application of nanocatalysts in wastewater treatment. Furthermore, the advantages, shortages and our perspectives of these methods are summarized and discussed.

Inhibition of biological acidification and mechanism of crotonaldehyde removal with glucose cometabolism.

Biological acidification is an effective method in the treatment or pretreatment of industrial wastewater. Crotonaldehyde is a typical characteristic organic pollutant in petrochemical wastewater, but its effect on biological acidification is unclear. To investigate the inhibitory characteristic of crotonaldehyde on biological acidification and the mechanism of crotonaldehyde removal, variations in volatile fatty acid (VFA) yields, enzyme activities, biodegradation products, and microbial community structures were investigated by batch experiments in the presence of crotonaldehyde. The results showed that crotonaldehyde caused a 50% effect concentration (EC50) on the specific acidogenic activity (SAA) of 204.17 mg/L before 24 h, and then, the inhibitory effect was removed after 48 h as the dosage of crotonaldehyde was less than 1000 mg/L. Accordingly, crotonaldehyde was completely reduced to crotonyl alcohol by nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) or oxidized to (E)-crotonic acid by aldehyde dehydrogenase (DHO) after 48 h. Next, 1-buanol and n-butyric acid were further metabolites, while the n-hexanoic acid detected with high-concentration crotonaldehyde might be due to the ORB pathway with 1-buanol as an electron donor. The dominant bacterial communities were Clostridium_sensu_stricto_1, Clostridium_sensu_stricto_11, Clostridium_sensu_stricto_12, which were related to the biodegradation process of crotonaldehyde. The findings of this research could provide a theoretical underpinning for developing the biological technologies to pretreat crotonaldehyde wastewater.

Novel insight into high solid anaerobic digestion of swine manure after thermal treatment: Kinetics and microbial community properties.

Compared to traditional anaerobic digestion (AD), high solid anaerobic digestion (HSAD) had the advantages of small digester, low heating energy and less digestate. However, the methane production was poor. In our previous study, thermal treatment (70 ±â€¯1 °C, 3 days) without any dilution could satisfactorily enhance the methane production rate of HSAD by up to 39.5%. However, effects of solid content on HSAD after thermal treatment were not yet studied. In this study, HSAD was conducted at 11.7-17.6% solid content, and the control experiment was conducted at low solid content (4.4% solid content). Results showed that HSAD's methane production rate was the highest at 11.7% solid content (158 mL CH4/g VS), and could reach up to 89.2% of that at 4.4% solid content. The utilization of organics was revealed by kinetics analysis that the readily biodegradable organics could be utilized at increasing solid content with decreasing hydrolysis rate. Furthermore, it was notable that methylotrophic methanogens predominated in HSAD with the abundance of 82.6%. This was quite unique from the general belief that AD system was usually dominated by acetoclastic or hydrogenotrophic methanogenic pathways. In this study, the microbial community structure of HSAD after thermal treatment was firstly studied, its unique specific methanogenic pathways was firstly revealed.

Realizing stable operation of anaerobic ammonia oxidation at low temperatures treating low strength synthetic wastewater.

The low activity of Anammox bacteria at low temperatures and competition from nitrite oxidation bacteria (NOB) when treating low strength wastewater have been major bottlenecks in implementing Anammox in mainstream wastewater treatment. By intermittent high strength feeding (IHSF) and stepwise temperature reduction, stable operation of a granular Anammox reactor was realized at low temperatures (down to 15°C) for 28days when treating low strength synthetic wastewater. The nitrogen loading rate reached 1.23-1.34kgN/m3/day, and the total nitrogen removal rate reached 0.71-0.98kgN/m3/day. The IHSF enriched the Anammox sludge in high strength cycles and compensated for sludge loss in low strength cycles, and the high concentration of ammonium in high strength cycles inhibited NOB. The 16SrRNA gene sequencing results revealed that Candidatus Kuenenia was predominant in the reactor at low temperatures.

Evaluation of antibiotic resistant lactose fermentative opportunistic pathogenic Enterobacteriaceae bacteria and blaTEM-2 gene in cephalosporin wastewater and its discharge receiving river.

This study investigated the concentration of cephalosporin, the resistant levels of lactose fermentative opportunistic pathogenic Enterobacteriaceae bacteria (LFOPEB) against seven antibiotics and one cephalosporin-resistant gene in cephalosporin wastewater (CPWW) treatment plant and its discharge receiving river. Although large numbers of bacteria have been removed during the CPWW treatment process, the antibiotic resistant rates of the isolates to ß-lactam antibiotics significantly increased (p = 0.032) after treatment, while the percentage of resistant LFOPEB to non-ß-lactam antibiotics did not change dramatically. Furthermore, the discharge of the effluent of CPWW treatment plant (CPWWeff) led to an obvious increase in the percentages of ß-lactam antibiotic-resistant LFOPEB and relative abundance of the blaTEM-2 gene in the downstream receiving river (RWdown) in comparison with those in the upstream receiving river (RWup). The antibiotic resistant phenotypes of isolates in the influent of CPWW treatment plant (CPWWin), CPWWeff and RWdown appeared to be seriously affected by the cephalosporin residues, which suggested that main antibiotic resistance phenotypes in antibiotic contaminated water were closely associated with its antibiotic composition. Therefore, CPWW treatment process has been proved to result in selective growth of ARB and proliferation of ARG. Besides, CPWWeff was also proved to be an important supplier of ARB and ARG to the receiving river.

Recovery of Cu(II) from aqueous solution by induced crystallization in a long-term operation.

The feasibility of copper recovery by induced crystallization in a long period (174days) was investigated in a seeded fluidized bed reactor (FBR). The process was divided into 3 periods according to different influent conditions, and the period III was separated into III-a and III-b due to the adjustment of the molar ratio of CO32- concentration to copper concentration ([CT]/[Cu2+]). The removal efficiency could exceed 95% and the average effluent copper concentration decreased to 3.0mg/L. The mean particle size of seed grains with copper crystals coating on, raised to 0.36mm from initial 0.18mm. During period III-a, the supersaturation exceeded 2.88×104, the removal efficiency decreased to 60%-80% and the particle size dropped to 0.30mm, due to the generation of fines by homogeneous crystallization and seeds breaking. And the morphology of the crystals on the seed grains changed from rod-like to spherical which lead to the particle size decreasing. In period III-b, the supersaturation was modified by adjusting the molar ratio of [CT]/[Cu2+] to 1.2 from 2. The efficiency was back to 95% and the mean particle size grew to 0.36mm at the end of III-b, the crystals coating on the seeds turned back to rod-like products of good stability. This study illustrated that the copper salt crystal could keep on growing on the seed grains for over 150days, the feasibility and controllability of copper recovery by induced crystallization process in FBR were satisfactory, even under the dramatic changes in influent conditions.

Quantification of multi-antibiotic resistant opportunistic pathogenic bacteria in bioaerosols in and around a pharmaceutical wastewater treatment plant.

Pharmaceutical wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are thought to be a "seedbed" and reservoirs for multi-antibiotic resistant pathogenic bacteria which can be transmitted to the air environment through aeration. We quantified airborne multi-antibiotic resistance in a full-scale plant to treat antibiotics-producing wastewater by collecting bioaerosol samples from December 2014 to July 2015. Gram-negative opportunistic pathogenic bacteria (GNOPB) were isolated, and antibiotic susceptibility tests against 18 commonly used antibiotics, including 11 ß-lactam antibiotics, 3 aminoglycosides, 2 fluoroquinolones, 1 furan and 1 sulfonamide, were conducted. More than 45% of airborne bacteria isolated from the pharmaceutical WWTP were resistant to three or more antibiotics, and some opportunistic pathogenic strains were resistant to 16 antibiotics, whereas 45.3% and 50.3% of the strains isolated from residential community and municipal WWTP showed resistance to three or more antibiotics. The calculation of the multiple antibiotic resistance (MAR) index demonstrated that the air environment in the pharmaceutical WWTP was highly impacted by antibiotic resistance, while the residential community and municipal WWTP was less impacted by antibiotic resistance. In addition, we determined that the dominant genera of opportunistic pathogenic bacteria isolated from all bioaerosol samples were Acinetobacter, Alcaligenes, Citrobacter, Enterobacter, Escherichia, Klebsiella, Pantoea, Pseudomonas and Sphingomonas. Collectively, these results indicate the proliferations and spread of antibiotic resistance through bioaerosols in WWTP treating cephalosporin-producing wastewater, which imposed a potential health risk for the staff and residents in the neighborhood, calling for administrative measures to minimize the air-transmission hazard.

Effects of residual organics in municipal wastewater on hydrogenotrophic denitrifying microbial communities.

Hydrogenotrophic denitrification is promising for tertiary nitrogen removal from municipal wastewater. To reveal the influence of residual organics in municipal wastewater on hydrogenotrophic denitrifiers, we adopted high-throughput 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing to examine microbial communities in hydrogenotrophic denitrification enrichments. Using effluent from a municipal wastewater treatment plant as water source, COD, nitrate and pH were controlled the same except for a gradient of biodegradable carbon (i.e., primary effluent (PE), secondary effluent (SE), or combined primary and secondary effluent (CE)). Inorganic synthetic water (IW) was used as a control. Hydrogenophaga, a major facultative autotroph, accounted for 17.1%, 5.3%, 32.7% and 12.9% of the sequences in PE, CE, SE and IW, respectively, implicating that Hydrogenophaga grew well with or without organics. Thauera, which contains likely obligate autotrophic denitrifiers, appeared to be the most dominant genera (23.6%) in IW and accounted for 2.5%, 4.6% and 8.9% in PE, CE and SE, respectively. Thermomonas, which is related to heterotrophic denitrification, accounted for 4.2% and 7.9% in PE and CE fed with a higher content of labile organics, respectively. In contrast, Thermomonas was not detected in IW and accounted for only 0.6% in SE. Our results suggest that Thermomonas are more competitive than Thauera in hydrogenotrophic denitrification with biodegradable organics. Moreover, facultative autotrophic denitrifiers, Hydrogenophaga, are accommodating to residual organic in effluent wastewater, thus we propose that hydrogenotrophic denitrification is amenable for tertiary nitrogen removal.

Nitrogen Removal and N2O Accumulation during Hydrogenotrophic Denitrification: Influence of Environmental Factors and Microbial Community Characteristics.

Hydrogenotrophic denitrification is regarded as an efficient alternative technology of removing nitrogen from nitrate-polluted water that has insufficient organics material. However, the biochemical process underlying this method has not been completely characterized, particularly with regard to the generation and reduction of nitrous oxide (N2O). In this study, the effects of key environmental factors on hydrogenotrophic denitrification and N2O accumulation were investigated in a series of batch tests. The results show that nitrogen removal was efficient with a specific denitrification rate of 0.66 kg N/(kg MLSS·d), and almost no N2O accumulation was observed when the dissolved hydrogen (DH) concentration was approximately 0.40 mg/L, the temperature was 30 °C, and the pH was 7.0. The reduction of nitrate was significantly affected by the pH, temperature, inorganic carbon (IC) content, and DH concentration. A considerable accumulation of N2O was only observed when the pH decreased to 6.0 and the temperature decreased to 15 °C, where little N2O accumulated under various IC and DH concentrations. To determine the microbial community structure, the hydrogenotrophic denitrifying enrichment culture was analyzed by Illumina high-throughput sequencing, and the dominant species were found to belong to the genera Paracoccus (26.1%), Azoarcus (24.8%), Acetoanaerobium (11.4%), Labrenzia (7.4%), and Dysgonomonas (6.0%).

Effects of free ammonia on volatile fatty acid accumulation and process performance in the anaerobic digestion of two typical bio-wastes.

The effect of free ammonia on volatile fatty acid (VFA) accumulation and process instability was studied using a lab-scale anaerobic digester fed by two typical bio-wastes: fruit and vegetable waste (FVW) and food waste (FW) at 35°C with an organic loading rate (OLR) of 3.0kg VS/(m3·day). The inhibitory effects of free ammonia on methanogenesis were observed due to the low C/N ratio of each substrate (15.6 and 17.2, respectively). A high concentration of free ammonia inhibited methanogenesis resulting in the accumulation of VFAs and a low methane yield. In the inhibited state, acetate accumulated more quickly than propionate and was the main type of accumulated VFA. The co-accumulation of ammonia and VFAs led to an "inhibited steady state" and the ammonia was the main inhibitory substance that triggered the process perturbation. By statistical significance test and VFA fluctuation ratio analysis, the free ammonia inhibition threshold was identified as 45mg/L. Moreover, propionate, iso-butyrate and valerate were determined to be the three most sensitive VFA parameters that were subject to ammonia inhibition.

The performance of a combined nitritation-anammox reactor treating anaerobic digestion supernatant under various C/N ratios.

A combined nitritation-anammox reactor was developed to treat the digestion supernatant under various C/N ratios. Due to the difficulties for heterotroph to utilize the refractory organics, the reactor presented relatively stable performance with increasing supernatant addition. Nevertheless, the adverse effects of supernatant would accumulate during the long-term operation and thus weakened the activity and shock resistance of microbes, which further led to the gradual decrease of reactor performance after 92 days' operation. Under this circumstance, supernatant with volatile fatty acids (VFAs) residuals was further introduced into the reactor to investigate the performance of combined nitritation-anammox process with VFA addition. With the appearance of VFAs, the nitrogen removal performance gradually restored and the reactor finally achieved stable and efficient performance with C/N ratio of 0.35. The VFA residuals within 150 mg/L in the supernatant served as the extra electron donors and stimulated the heterotrophic denitrification process, which was vital for the enhancement of reactor. The nitrogen removal rate and total nitrogen removal efficiency reached 0.49 kg N/(m3·day) and 88.8% after 140 days' operation, respectively. The combined nitritation-anammox reactor was proved suitable to treat digestion supernatant.

A combined evaluation of the characteristics and acute toxicity of antibiotic wastewater.

The conventional parameters and acute toxicities of antibiotic wastewater collected from each treatment unit of an antibiotic wastewater treatment plant have been investigated. The investigation of the conventional parameters indicated that the antibiotic wastewater treatment plant performed well under the significant fluctuation in influent water quality. The results of acute toxicity indicated that the toxicity of antibiotic wastewater could be reduced by 94.3 percent on average after treatment. However, treated antibiotic effluents were still toxic to Vibrio fischeri. The toxicity of antibiotic production wastewater could be attributed to the joint effects of toxic compound mixtures in wastewater. Moreover, aerobic biological treatment processes, including sequencing batch reactor (SBR) and aerobic biofilm reactor, played the most important role in reducing toxicity by 92.4 percent. Pearson׳s correlation coefficients revealed that toxicity had a strong and positive linear correlation with organic substances, nitrogenous compounds, S(2-), volatile phenol, cyanide, As, Zn, Cd, Ni and Fe. Ammonia nitrogen (NH4(+)) was the greatest contributor to toxicity according to the stepwise regression method. The multiple regression model was a good fit for [TU50-15 min] as a function of [NH4(+)] with the determination coefficient of 0.981.

Advanced treatment of cephalosporin pharmaceutical wastewater by nano-coated electrode and perforated electrode.

The objective of this study was to investigate the degradation of nonbiodegradable organic pollutants in biologically cephalosporin pharmaceutical wastewater using different electrodes such as non-nano-scale electrode (traditional coated), nano-scale (nano-coated) electrode, and perforated electrode after biotreatment. The traditional coated electrode plate, nano-coated electrode plate, and two different perforated titanium dioxide (TiO2) electrode plates with an average pore size of 10 µm and 20 µm were chosen as the anode. The results demonstrated that traditional coated electrode, nano-scale electrode, and perforated electrode could effectively remove nonbiodegradable organic pollutants from pharmaceutical wastewater. The perforated electrode with an average pore size of 10 µm exhibited the best degradation effect with a 90 % decrease in the chemical oxygen demand (COD) (COD content reduced from 320 mg L(-1) to 32 mg L(-1)). During catalytic degradation, the electrical conductivity of pharmaceutical wastewater increased and the pH increased and finally reached equilibrium. It was also found that the perforated TiO2 electrode produced relatively large amounts of dissolved oxygen during the catalytic oxidation process, reaching above 4 mg L(-1), whereas the nano-coated electrode produced little dissolved oxygen. The biotoxicities of all wastewater samples increased firstly then decreased slightly during the electrical catalytic oxidation, but the final biotoxicities were all higher than initial ones.

Microbial community structures in an integrated two-phase anaerobic bioreactor fed by fruit vegetable wastes and wheat straw.

The microbial community structures in an integrated two-phase anaerobic reactor (ITPAR) were investigated by 16S rDNA clone library technology. The 75L reactor was designed with a 25L rotating acidogenic unit at the top and a 50L conventional upflow methanogenic unit at the bottom, with a recirculation connected to the two units. The reactor had been operated for 21 stages to co-digest fruit/vegetable wastes and wheat straw, which showed a very good biogas production and decomposition of cellulosic materials. The results showed that many kinds of cellulose and glycan decomposition bacteria related with Bacteroidales, Clostridiales and Syntrophobacterales were dominated in the reactor, with more bacteria community diversities in the acidogenic unit. The methanogens were mostly related with Methanosaeta, Methanosarcina, Methanoculleus, Methanospirillum and Methanobacterium; the predominating genus Methanosaeta, accounting for 40.5%, 54.2%, 73.6% and 78.7% in four samples from top to bottom, indicated a major methanogenesis pathway by acetoclastic methanogenesis in the methanogenic unit. The beta diversity indexes illustrated a more similar distribution of bacterial communities than that of methanogens between acidogenic unit and methanogenic unit. The differentiation of methanogenic community composition in two phases, as well as pH values and volatile fatty acid (VFA) concentrations confirmed the phase separation of the ITPAR. Overall, the results of this study demonstrated that the special designing of ITPAR maintained a sufficient number of methanogens, more diverse communities and stronger syntrophic associations among microorganisms, which made two phase anaerobic digestion of cellulosic materials more efficient.

Graphene-supported nanoscale zero-valent iron: removal of phosphorus from aqueous solution and mechanistic study.

Excess phosphorus from non-point pollution sources is one of the key factors causing eutrophication in many lakes in China, so finding a cost-effective method to remove phosphorus from non-point pollution sources is very important for the health of the aqueous environment. Graphene was selected to support nanoscale zero-valent iron (nZVI) for phosphorus removal from synthetic rainwater runoff in this article. Compared with nZVI supported on other porous materials, graphene-supported nZVI (G-nZVI) could remove phosphorus more efficiently. The amount of nZVI in G-nZVI was an important factor in the removal of phosphorus by G-nZVI, and G-nZVI with 20 wt.% nZVI (20% G-nZVI) could remove phosphorus most efficiently. The nZVI was very stable and could disperse very well on graphene, as characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and Raman spectroscopy were used to elucidate the reaction process, and the results indicated that Fe-O-P was formed after phosphorus was adsorbed by G-nZVI. The results obtained from X-ray diffraction (XRD) indicated that the reaction product between nZVI supported on graphene and phosphorus was Fe3(PO4)2·8H2O (Vivianite). It was confirmed that the specific reaction mechanism for the removal of phosphorus with nZVI or G-nZVI was mainly due to chemical reaction between nZVI and phosphorus.