Inhibition of phosphorus removal performance in activated sludge by Fe(III) exposure: transitions in dominant metabolic pathways.

Introduction: Simultaneous chemical phosphorus removal process using iron salts (Fe(III)) has been widely utilized in wastewater treatment to meet increasingly stringent discharge standards. However, the inhibitory effect of Fe(III) on the biological phosphorus removal system remains a topic of debate, with its precise mechanism yet to be fully understood. Methods: Batch and long-term exposure experiments were conducted in six sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) operating for 155 days. Synthetic wastewater containing various Fe/P ratios (i.e., Fe/P = 1, 1.2, 1.5, 1.8, and 2) was slowly poured into the SBRs during the experimental period to assess the effects of acute and chronic Fe(III) exposure on polyphosphate-accumulating organism (PAO) growth and phosphorus metabolism. Results: Experimental results revealed that prolonged Fe(III) exposure induced a transition in the dominant phosphorus removal mechanism within activated sludge, resulting in a diminished availability of phosphorus for bio-metabolism. In Fe(III)-treated groups, intracellular phosphorus storage ranged from 3.11 to 7.67 mg/g VSS, representing only 26.01 to 64.13% of the control. Although the abundance of widely reported PAOs (Candidatus Accumulibacter) was 30.15% in the experimental group, phosphorus release and uptake were strongly inhibited by high dosage of Fe(III). Furthermore, the abundance of functional genes associated with key enzymes in the glycogen metabolism pathway increased while those related to the polyphosphate metabolism pathway decreased under chronic Fe(III) stress. Discussion: These findings collectively suggest that the energy generated from polyhydroxyalkanoates oxidation in PAOs primarily facilitated glycogen metabolism rather than promoting phosphorus uptake. Consequently, the dominant metabolic pathway of communities shifted from polyphosphate-accumulating metabolism to glycogen-accumulating metabolism as the major contributor to the decreased biological phosphorus removal performance.

Ratio fluorescence sensor based on CD/Cu-MOFs for detection of Hg2.

Trace detection of toxic heavy metals is a very important and difficult problem in several areas: convenience, sensitivity, and reliability. Herein, we develop an innovative fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)-based ratio fluorescence sensor for the detection of heavy metal mercury ion (H g 2+). The sensing platform is composed of coumarin derivatives (CDs) and a copper metal-organic framework (Cu-MOF) named CD/Cu-MOF. The constructed CD/Cu-MOFs ratio fluorescence sensor exhibits dual emission peaks at 430 and 505 nm under the single excitation wavelength of 330 nm. With the addition of H g 2+, the fluorescence intensity of the system at 430 nm gradually increased, and the fluorescence intensity at 505 nm remained stable, resulting in a change in the fluorescence ratio. There is a good logarithmic relationship between the H g 2+ concentration in the range from 2×10-8 to 0.001 nM and the ratio of the fluorescence emission intensity of the system (F 430/F 505) (R 2=0.9901), and its calculated detection limit is 3.76×10-9 n M. In addition, the CD/Cu-MOFs ratio fluorescence sensor has achieved a good recovery rate of standard addition in the actual food sample recovery experiment, which provides an effective method for the detection of H g 2+ in food samples.

Chronic high-dose silver nanoparticle exposure stimulates N2O emissions by constructing anaerobic micro-environment.

Silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) were found to be responsible for nitrous oxide (N2O) generation; however, the mechanism of Ag-NP induced N2O production remains controversial and needs to be elucidated. In this study, chronic Ag-NP exposure experiments were conducted in five independent sequencing batch biofilm reactors to systematically assess the effects of Ag-NPs on N2O emission. The results indicated that a low dose of Ag-NPs (< 1 mg/L) slightly suppressed N2O generation by less than 22.99% compared with the no-Ag-NP control method. In contrast, a high dose (5 mg/L) of Ag-NPs stimulated N2O emission by 67.54%. ICP-MS and SEM-EDS together revealed that high Ag-NP content accumulated on the biofilm surface when exposed to 5 mg/L Ag-NPs. N2O and DO microelectrodes, as well as N2O isotopic composition analyses, further demonstrated that the accumulated Ag-NPs construct the anaerobic zone in the biofilm, which is the primary factor for the stimulation of the nitrite reduction pathway to release N2O. A metagenomic analysis further attributed the higher N2O emissions under exposure to a high dose of Ag-NPs to the higher relative abundance of narB and nirK genes (i.e. 1.52- and 1.29-fold higher, respectively). These findings collectively suggest that chronic exposure to high doses of Ag-NPs could enhance N2O emissions by forming anaerobic micro-environments in biofilms.