Bubbles in Porous Electrodes for Alkaline Water Electrolysis.

Porous electrodes with high specific surface areas have been commonly employed for alkaline water electrolysis. The gas bubbles generated in electrodes due to water electrolysis, however, can screen the reaction sites and hinder reactant transport, thereby deteriorating the performance of electrodes. Hence, an in-depth understanding of the behavior of bubbles in porous electrodes is of great importance. Nevertheless, since porous electrodes are opaque, direct observation of bubbles therein is still a challenge. In this work, we have successfully captured the behavior of bubbles in the pores at the side surfaces of nickel-based porous electrodes. Two types of porous electrodes are employed: the ones with straight pores along the gravitational direction and the ones with tortuous pores. In the porous electrodes with tortuous pores, the moving bubbles are prone to collide with the solid matrix, thereby leading to the accumulation of bubbles in the pores and hence bubble trapping. By contrast, in the porous electrodes with straight pores, bubbles are seldom trapped; and when two bubbles near the wall surfaces coalesce, the merged bubble can jump away from the wall surfaces, releasing more active surfaces for reaction. As a result, the porous electrodes with straight pores, although with lower specific surface areas, are superior to those with tortuous pores. The relationship among the pore structures of porous electrodes, bubble behavior, and electrode performance disclosed in this work provides deep insights into the design of porous electrodes.

Research on optical sparse code division multiple access encoding technology based on a multi-core fiber.

Sparse code division multiple access (SCMA) technology is one of the main technologies of 5G (5th Generation Mobile Communication Technology). Applying SCMA technology to the field of optical communication has broad prospects, which solves the access problem of a large number of users in optical access network. In this paper, a transmission system based on SCMA over multi-core fiber is proposed. The SCMA coding signal transmission at 30 Gb/s is successfully implemented on a seven-core fiber, which four of seven-core is only used. Its bit error rate (BER) can achieve forward error correction (FEC) limit (BER is 3.8 × 10-3) when the received optical power is -10 dBm. And this experiment verifies the performance of the proposed scheme. In addition, we propose a scheme to reduce the complexity of message passing algorithm (MPA) at the receiver by using the core of fiber dimension. Compared with original MPA, this scheme reduces the number of users superimposed on the same resource block. From the second experiment, for a BER of FEC limit the SNR penalty is∼1 dB for the proposed MPA compared to original MPA. The research of this paper provides a feasible scheme for the next generation of optical access network.

High-security SCMA-OFDM multi-core fiber transmission system based on a regular hexagon chaotic codebook.

Sparse code multiple access (SCMA), a new code-domain non-orthogonal technology in the fifth-generation mobile communication (5G), can be modulated by orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) to improve the link quality of a single user. In this paper, a high-security SCMA-OFDM multi-core fiber transmission system based on a regular hexagonal chaotic codebook is proposed for next-generation passive optical network (PON). The whole encryption process consists of a regular hexagon chaotic codebook design and frequency domain block scrambling. In designing the regular hexagon chaotic codebook, the optimization of constellation points on orthogonal resources are considered as the starting point. Firstly, the chaos factor generated by the four-dimensional Rossler chaos model is deployed to disturb the mother constellation, and then the corresponding chaotic book is formed by rotating the mother constellation and multiplying the sparse matrix. The designed codebook logically avoids the degradation of transmission performance caused by the rough scrambling of codebook constellation, to find a balance between codebook disturbance and bit error rate (BER). The security and reliability of the transmission system have been verified by performing 42 Gb/s encrypted SCMA-OFDM data transmission experiments in a 2km multi-core fiber. The key space of the encryption scheme can reach 10178, which effectively ensures the security of the transmission system. Furthermore, the performance of the transmission system with a regular hexagon chaotic codebook is improved by 2.5 dB compared with the traditional codebook when the BER is 1 × 10-3. Moreover, the SCMA-OFDM-based transmission architecture and the detection effects of different multi-user detection algorithms in the SCMA-OFDM multi-core fiber transmission system are also studied.

Effects of phosphate on the transport of graphene oxide nanoparticles in saturated clean and iron oxide-coated sand columns.

In this study, transport behaviors of graphene oxide (GO) in saturated uncoated (i.e., clean sand) and goethite-coated sand porous media were examined as a function of the phosphate. We found that phosphate enhanced the transport of GO over a wide range of solution chemistry (i.e., pH 5.0-9.0 and the presence of 10 mmol/L Na+ or 0.5 mmol/L Ca2+). The results were mainly ascribed to the increase of electrostatic repulsion between nanoparticles and porous media. Meanwhile, deposition site competition induced by the retained phosphate was another important mechanism leading to promote GO transport. Interestingly, when the phosphate concentration increased from 0.1 to 1.0 mmol/L, the transport-enhancement effect of phosphate in goethite-coated sand was to a much larger extent than that in clean sand. The observations were primarily related to the difference in the total mass of retained phosphate between the iron oxide-coated sand and clean sand columns, which resulted in different degrees of the electrostatic repulsion and competitive effect of phosphate. When the background solution contained 0.5 mmol/L Ca2+, phosphate could be bind to sand/ goethite-coated sand surface by cation bridging; and consequently, promoted competition between phosphate and nanoparticles for deposition sites, which was an important mechanism for the enhanced effect of phosphate. Moreover, the DLVO theory was applicable to describe GO transport behaviors in porous media in the absence or presence of phosphate. Taken together, these findings highlight the important status and role of phosphate on the transport and fate of colloidal graphene oxide in the subsurface environment.

Effect of phosphate on the adsorption of antibiotics onto iron oxide minerals: Comparison between tetracycline and ciprofloxacin.

With the broadly application of antibiotics to treat infectious diseases in humans and animals, antibiotic contaminants such as tetracycline (TC) and ciprofloxacin (CIP) have been detected in soil environments, where iron oxide minerals and phosphate are ubiquitous. To date, the influence of phosphate on the adsorption behaviors of TC/CIP onto iron oxides is still poorly understood. In this study, the effects of phosphate on the adsorptions of TC and CIP onto iron oxide minerals were investigated. Adsorption isotherms showed that the adsorption affinities of TC and CIP onto the three iron oxide minerals were in the order of goethite > hematite > magnetite with or without phosphate, the trend was dominated by different surface area and amount of surface hydroxyl groups of iron oxide minerals. Meanwhile, TC contains more functional groups than CIP for bonding, which resulted in greater adsorption affinity of three iron oxides to TC than that to CIP. Interestingly, phosphate weakened TC adsorption, while enhanced CIP adsorption, on the three iron oxides. This observation was ascribed to that phosphate anion enhanced the surface negative charge of iron oxides, which reinforced the electrostatic repulsion between iron oxides and negatively charged TC, also reinforced the electrostatic attraction between iron oxides and positively charged CIP. Furthermore, the inhibitory effect of phosphate on TC adsorption was dramatically enhanced at high pH, while the promoting effect of phosphate on CIP adsorption was slightly changed with various pH. Our results highlight the importance of phosphate in exploring the environmental fate of antibiotics in natural environment.

Effects of clay colloids on ciprofloxacin transport in saturated quartz sand porous media under different solution chemistry conditions.

Antibiotics, a highly prevalent class of environmental organic pollutants, are becoming a matter of global concern. Clay minerals that are ubiquitous in subsurface environments may play an important role in the fate and transport of antibiotics. Taking ciprofloxacin (CIP) as a model antibiotic, this work explored the role of clay colloids (kaolinite and montmorillonite) on the adsorption and transport of CIP under different chemical solution conditions. The adsorption isotherms showed that montmorillonite colloids had a larger CIP sorption capacity than kaolinite colloids. The results of transport experiments indicated that montmorillonite colloids could promote CIP transport in saturated sand columns, but the addition of kaolinite colloids affected CIP mobility to a much smaller extent. The much stronger transport-enhancement effect of montmorillonite colloids was due to CIP adsorbed strongly to the colloids and desorption hysteresis of colloid-adsorbed CIP, likely stemming from the intercalation of this antibiotic in the interlayer of montmorillonite. Interestingly, transport of clay colloids increased with the increasing pH from 5.0 to 9.0; however, CIP transport decreased with the increasing pH in the presence of clay colloids. The observations were likely attributable to pH-dependent ciprofloxacin adsorption/desorption to clay minerals. Increasing the concentrations of NaCl and CaCl2 generally decreased the contaminant-mobilizing ability of montmorillonite colloids, mainly by increasing the aggregation of colloids and thus, decreasing the transport of colloid-adsorbed CIP. Moreover, under the test conditions (1 mM NaCl and pH 7.0), the presence of CIP inhibited the transport of clay colloids due to the increase in aggregate size of clay colloids with the addition of CIP. Overall, these findings suggest that clay colloids with high adsorption abilities for antibiotics in the subsurface environment may act as a carrier for certain antibiotic compounds.

Enhanced absorption of graphene monolayer with a single-layer resonant grating at the Brewster angle in the visible range.

One method for enhancement and manipulation of light absorption with monolayer graphene covered on a single-layer guided mode resonant Brewster filter surface is demonstrated. By means of the rigorous coupled-wave analysis method, the effect of geometrical parameters on the optical response of the structure is investigated. It is possible to achieve a maximum absorption of 60% at the Brewster angle; dual-band optical absorption can also be realized when the depth of the grating is increased. The situation of oblique incidence for TM polarization is studied as well; the absorption property can be controlled by adjusting the incident angle without changing the structural parameters. The proposed structure has the advantage of more free geometry parameters compared to the graphene disk and ribbon, so the absorption could be tuned more flexibly.

Enhanced transport of heavy metal ions by low-molecular-weight organic acids in saturated porous media: Link complex stability constants to heavy metal mobility.

Environment-ubiquitous low-molecular-weight organic acids (LMWOAs) can interact with heavy metal ions and thus affect their mobility in subsurface aquifers. Herein, the effects of LMWOAs (including acetic acid, tartaric acid, malonic acid, oxalic acid, and citric acid) on the mobility of heavy metal ions (including Cd2+, Zn2+, Ni2+, Mn2+, and Co2+) in porous media were investigated to reveal the role of the stability constants of metal-LMWOA complexes in the mobility of heavy metal ions in porous media. The results showed that the mobility of different metal ions followed the order of Cd2+ < Zn2+ < Ni2+ < Mn2+ < Co2+ despite of LMWOAs-free or LMWOAs-addition. For each heavy metal, all the organic acids enhanced its transport by forming stable non-adsorbing metal-LMWOA complexes and the enhanced ability followed the order of citric acid > oxalic acid > malonic acid > tartaric acid > acetic acid. An interesting finding was that there was a significantly positive correlation between the enhanced abilities of LMWOAs to metal mobility and the complex stability constants (log K) (R2 = 0.801-0.961, p < 0.05), indicating that the complex stability of metal-LMWOA was the dominant factor responsible for the enhanced transport of heavy metal ions. Meanwhile, the linear slope indicated the intensity of enhancement of LMWOAs on heavy metal mobility was heavy metal type-dependent. This study proposed that the complex stability of metal-LMWOA could be an indicator to quantify and predict the impact of LMWOAs on the mobility of heavy metals.

A Pilot Assessment on the Role of Procalcitonin Dynamic Monitoring in the Early Diagnosis of Infection Post Cardiac Surgery.

Purpose: To evaluate the value of dynamic monitoring of procalcitonin (PCT) as a biomarker for the early diagnosis of postoperative infections in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Methods: In total, 252 patients who underwent cardiac surgery were retrospectively included. The postoperative patients' PCT level, change value (△PCT), and clearance rate (△PCTc) were compared between the infected and noninfected groups in adult and pediatric patients on postoperative days (PODs) 1, 3, and 5. The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) was used to evaluate the diagnostic value. Results: Procalcitonin concentration decreased progressively in the noninfected group in adult and pediatric patients; PCT concentration continued to rise until it peaked on POD 3 in the infected group. In adult patients, the AUC of PCT for diagnosis of infection on PODs 1, 3, and 5 were 0.626, 0.817, and 0.806, with the optimal cut-off values of 7.35, 3.63, and 1.73 ng/ml, respectively. The diagnostic efficiency of △PCT3 and △PCT C3 was significantly better than △PCT5 and △PCT C5 , respectively. In pediatric patients, the AUC of PCT for diagnosis of infection on PODs 1, 3, and 5 were 0.677, 0.747, and 0.756, respectively, and the optimal cut-off values were 27.62, 26.15, and 10.20 ng/ml. Conclusion: This study showed that dynamic monitoring of PCT levels could be an effective clinical means to help to discover postoperative infection earlier. The PCT level and its change indicators on POD 3 in adult patients and the PCT level on POD 5 in children can indicate infection.

Role of solution chemistry in the attachment of graphene oxide nanoparticles onto iron oxide minerals with different characteristics.

Given the ubiquity and abundance of the iron oxide minerals and their important roles in affecting the environmental fate of graphene oxide (GO) nanoparticles, the attachment of GO onto three iron oxide minerals (i.e., hematite, goethite, and ferrihydrite) under different solution chemistry conditions was investigated in this study. The main mechanism of the attachment of GO was electrostatic interaction. Calculations based on the DLVO theory showed that the attachment was a favorable process. Interestingly, the affinity of GO towards three iron oxide minerals was in the order of ferrihydrite > goethite > hematite. This result indicates that different characteristics of various iron oxides (e.g., specific surface area, crystal structure, and surface charge, and surface hydroxyl densities) can influence their attachment capacities for GO. The attachment of GO depended on the solution pH and ionic strength. Electrostatic attraction and hydrogen bonding were the important retention mechanisms for GO attachment when pH < pHPZC (the point of zero charge) and pH > pHPZC, respectively. The attachment capacities of iron oxides decreased with increasing ionic strength at lower pH because of the decrease of the electrostatic attraction. Meanwhile, the presence of divalent cations (i.e., Ca2+ and Cu2+) could significantly promote GO attachment mainly by the surface-bridging mechanism. Meanwhile, the enhancement effect of Cu2+ was greater than Ca2+ due to the greater complexation affinity of Cu2+. Furthermore, attachment isotherms showed that the presence of phosphate could inhibit the attachment of GO onto minerals obviously. Because phosphate could form inner-sphere surface complex on the iron oxide surface, and consequently decreased the electrostatic attraction between nanoparticles and minerals. Our study has important implications for predicting the fate of GO in natural environment where amounts of iron oxide minerals are present.

Graphene oxide nanoparticles and hematite colloids behave oppositely in their co-transport in saturated porous media.

Since iron oxide minerals are ubiquitous in natural environments, the release of graphene oxide (GO) into environmental ecosystems can potentially interact with iron oxide particles and thus alter their surface properties, resulting in the change of their transport behaviors in subsurface systems. Column experiments were performed in this study to investigate the co-transport of GO nanoparticles and hematite colloids (a model representative of iron oxides) in saturated sand. The results demonstrated that the presence of hematite inhibited GO transport in quartz sand columns due to the formation of less negatively charged GO-hematite heteroaggregates and additional deposition sites provided by the adsorbed hematite on sand surfaces. Contrarily, GO co-present in suspensions significantly enhanced the transport of hematite colloids through different mechanisms such as the increase of electrostatic repulsion, decreased physical straining, GO-facilitated transport of hematite (i.e., highly mobile GO nanoparticles served as a mobile carrier for hematite). We also found that the co-transport behaviors of GO and hematite depended on solution chemistry (e.g., pH, ionic strength, and divalent cation (i.e., Ca2+)), which affected the electrostatic interaction as well as heteroaggregation behaviors between GO nanoparticles and hematite colloids. The findings provide an insight into the potential fate of carbon nanomaterials affected by mineral colloids existing in natural waters and soils.

Insights into the mutual promotion effect of graphene oxide nanoparticles and tetracycline on their transport in saturated porous media.

In this study, batch and column tests were performed to investigate the co-transport of graphene oxide (GO) nanoparticles and tetracycline in saturated porous media under various solution chemistry conditions. Research indicated that GO and tetracycline had mutual promotion effect on their transport in the porous media under all the tested conditions, which was ascribed to the high adsorption capacity of tetracycline onto GO and the increased electrostatic repulsion as well as their competition for deposition sites on sand surfaces. Interestingly, the mutually promoting function of GO and tetracycline under acidic conditions was greater than that under alkaline conditions, the dominant mechanism was that the increased solution pH decreased the sorption of tetracycline onto GO and weakened the deposition site competition. Furthermore, the mutually promoting effect of GO and tetracycline was Na+ or Ca2+ concentration-dependent. Specially, increased Ca2+ concentration weakened the promoting effect of GO on tetracycline transport but magnified the promoting effect of tetracycline on GO transport. This is because higher Ca2+ concentration could cause a decrease in the adsorption of tetracycline on GO and facilitate more tetracycline molecules to occupy the deposition sites on sand surfaces. Additionally, sodium dodecyl sulfate had enhancement effect on co-transport of GO and tetracycline. Findings from this study clearly indicated that antibiotics and carbon based nanomaterials may transport together under various solution chemistry conditions, and consequently affect their fates in aquatic environments.

Transport of Cd2+ through saturated porous media: Insight into the effects of low-molecular-weight organic acids.

Low-molecular-weight organic acids (LMWOAs) are ubiquitous in the aquatic environment and consequently may affect the heavy metal transport in aquifer systems. In this study, the influences of LMWOAs on the transport of Cd2+ under different pH conditions in saturated porous media were evaluated. For this, three LMWOAs such as acetic acid, tartaric acid, and citric acid were employed. A two-site nonequilibrium transport model was applied to simulate the transport data. Under acidic conditions (pH 5.0), the results indicated that LMWOAs inhibited the transport of Cd2+ even at the low concentrations of organic acids (i.e., 0.05 and 0.1 mM). The inhibition effects might be attributed to the complexation role of the sand surface-bound organic acids and also electrostatic interaction. Meanwhile, the inhibition effects of LMWOAs on Cd2+ transport in the following order of citric acid > tartaric acid > acetic acid, which was also in agreement with the decreasing complex stability constants between Cd2+ and LMWOAs. This order may be dependent on their molecular structures (i.e., amount and type of functional groups) and complexing strength. Interestingly, when the LMWOA concentrations 0.5 mM, tartaric acid and citric acid still inhibited Cd2+ transport, while acetic acid slightly enhanced the Cd2+ mobility due to its weaker complexing strength. However, under neutral conditions (pH 7.0), LMWOAs generally enhanced the transport of Cd2+. The transport-enhancement of LMWOAs was ascribed to the formation of stable aqueous non-adsorbing Cd-organic acid complexes. In addition, citric acid could obviously inhibit the transport of Cd2+ under competitive transport conditions (i.e., with competing cations), which is mainly due to different complex affinities of citric acid to Pb2+ and Cd2+. These findings demonstrate that LMWOAs may inhibit or facilitate Cd2+ transport under different environmental conditions. Thus, environmental assessment concerning the transport of heavy metals should consider the roles of organic acids.

Extraction of cobalt(ii) by methyltrioctylammonium chloride in nickel(ii)-containing chloride solution from spent lithium ion batteries.

Spent lithium batteries contain valuable metals such as cobalt, copper, nickel, lithium, etc. After pretreatment and recovery of copper, only cobalt, nickel and lithium were left in the acid solution. Since the chemical properties of cobalt and nickel are similar, separation of cobalt from a solution containing nickel is technically challenging. In this study, Co(ii) was separated from Ni(ii) by chelating Co(ii) with chlorine ions, Co(ii) was then extracted from the aforementioned chelating complexes by methyltrioctylammonium chloride (MTOAC). The effects of concentrations of chlorine ions in the aqueous phase ([Cl-]aq), MTOAC concentrations in organic phase ([MTOAC]org), ratios of organic phase to aqueous phase (O/A), and the initial aqueous pH on cobalt separation were studied. The results showed that [Cl-]aq had a significant impact on cobalt extraction efficiency with cobalt extraction efficiency increasing rapidly with the increase in [Cl-]aq. The effect of initial pH on cobalt extraction efficiency was not significant when it varied from 1 to 6. Under the condition of [Cl-]aq = 5.5 M, [MTOAC]org = 1.3 M, O/A = 1.5, and pH = 1.0, cobalt extraction efficiency reached the maximum of 98.23%, and nickel loss rate was only 0.86%. The stripping rate of cobalt from Co(ii)-MTOAC complexes using diluted hydrochloric acid was 99.95%. By XRD and XRF analysis, the recovered cobalt was in the form of cobalt chloride with the purity of cobalt produced reaching 97.7%. The mode of cobalt extraction was verified to be limited by chemical reaction and the kinetic equation for cobalt extraction was determined to be: R (Co) = 4.7 × 10-3[MTOAC](org) 1.85[Co](aq) 1.25.

Effects of low-molecular weight organic acids on the transport of graphene oxide nanoparticles in saturated sand columns.

The impact of low-molecular weight organic acids (LMWOAs) on the transport of graphene oxide (GO) nanoparticles in saturated quartz sand was investigated. The different LMWOAs such as acetic acid, glycolic acid, malonic acid, and tartaric acid were used in experiments. The effects of LMWOAs on the transport of GO were markedly dependent upon organic acid species. In general, the transport enhancement effects followed the order of tartaric acid > malonic acid > glycolic acid > acetic acid, the regular pattern might be related to amount and type of functional groups of LMWOAs. Additionally, the different enhanced ability of LMWOAs was determined by their molecular weight. In the presence of Na+, the main deposition mechanism was ascribed to steric hindrance and competition between LMWOA and GO for deposition sites on grain surfaces under acidic conditions (i.e., pH 4.0 and 5.0). Batch adsorption experiments indicated the extents of competitive adsorption between LMWOAs and GO on quartz sand. In addition, the DLVO theory was not applicable to describe the transport of GO in the presence of LMWOAs at pH 5.0. Nevertheless, electrostatic and steric repulsion, existing between GO and sand grains, were the most important deposition mechanisms under the neutral condition (i.e., pH 7.0). When Ca2+ was the main cation in the background solution, the transport enhancement effects followed quite similar order to those of Na+, mainly due to different complexing strength of organic acids.

Effects of solution chemistry on the attachment of graphene oxide onto clay minerals.

With the increase in production and wide application of graphene oxide (GO), colloidal GO particles are expectantly released into soil and groundwater, where a large number of mineral particles exist. In addition, the porewater chemistry (e.g. organic acid, valence of cation) is a neglected but important aspect to comprehensively investigate the fate of GO. The interactions of GO with three ubiquitous clay minerals (i.e., montmorillonite, kaolinite and diatomite) have been systematically investigated through batch experiments across different solution chemistry conditions. In general, the affinity towards GO is in the order of montmorillonite > kaolinite > diatomite under the same experimental conditions. This observation can be explained by the characteristics of different clay minerals, such as surface charge and surface area. The results indicated that increasing the ionic strength or decreasing the pH enhanced the attachment of GO nanoparticles onto clay minerals as a result of electrostatic interactions. With the increase in concentration of Ca2+, more GO particles were attached onto clay mineral particles. This is caused by complexation between the surface oxygen functional groups of both GO nanoparticles and clay minerals. The presence of 0.1 mM tartaric acid significantly inhibited the attachment of GO onto clay minerals. This is possibly linked to the increased negative charges of the organic acids and the competition between organic acids and GO. The interaction energies were also calculated by applying the classical DLVO theory. The results of this study have helped to understand the behavior and fate of GO in subsurface formations.

Effects of divalent metal cations and inorganic anions on the transport of tetracycline in saturated porous media: column experiments and numerical simulations.

Tetracycline is one of the most commonly used antibiotics in the world. Eventually, large amounts of this contaminant will enter into the subsurface environment, where a variety of ions exist. In this study, the effects of divalent metal cations (Mg2+, Ca2+, Pb2+ and Cu2+) and inorganic anions (Cl-, NO3-, SO42- and H2PO4-) on the transport of tetracycline in saturated porous media were investigated. Both batch and column experiments were conducted to determine the interactions between tetracycline and sand. Batch sorption experimental results showed that the presence of divalent metal cations could increase the sorption of tetracycline onto sand due to the cation-bridging mechanism. When Na+ was the counterion in the background solution, anions caused a significant decrease in tetracycline sorption owing to the occupation of some adsorption sites by anions and the decrease of electrostatic attraction. Column experiments indicated that the inhibition effects of divalent cations followed the order of Cu2+ > Pb2+ > Ca2+ ≈ Mg2+; the regular pattern might be related to their different complexing strengths. The presence of inorganic anions enhanced the mobility of tetracycline following the order of H2PO4- > SO42- > NO3- > Cl-. Transport-enhancement effects of anions were ascribed to competition between inorganic anions and tetracycline for deposition sites on sand surfaces. However, when Ca2+ was the counterion, the differences in the breakthrough curve of tetracycline among three inorganic anions (i.e., SO42-, NO3- and Cl-) were very small. In this case, the transport-inhibiting effects of anions could be counterbalanced by the transport-enhancement effects of the cation-bridging effect. Also, the two-site nonequilibrium transport model was applied to analyze the transport data. Findings from this study improve our understanding of the transport of tetracycline in saturated aquifer materials.

Effect of inorganic carbon on nitrogen removal and microbial communities of CANON process in a membrane bioreactor.

In this study, a membrane bioreactor (MBR) was adopted for completely autotrophic nitrogen removal over nitrite (CANON) process. Inorganic carbon (IC) was step-wise decreased to analyze the IC influence on nitrogen removal and microbial communities, finally IC was elevated to study its recovery capability. The bioactivities of functional organisms were detected by batch experiments. Results showed that the bioactivity and biodiversity of aerobic ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and anaerobic ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AAOB) both decreased due to the IC shortage, while nitrite-oxidizing bacteria bioactivity showed a contrary result. When the concentration ratio of IC to nitrogen (IC/N) decreased to 1.0, the nitrogen removal sharply deteriorated, which then recovered when the ratio increased to 2.5. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis results showed that Nitrosomonas sp. of AOB and Candidatus Brocadia fulgida of AAOB could survive in the condition of IC deficit. The prominent IC/N ratio for high-rate and stable CANON was between 1.5-2.0.