Combined effects of biochar and biodegradable mulch film on chromium bioavailability and the agronomic characteristics of tobacco.

Biochar (BC) and biodegradable mulch film (BMF) are both commonly used means of production in agriculture. In recent years, most studies have focused on the effects of BC or BMF on soil heavy metal pollution, while they have neglected the combined effects. In this study, a pot experiment was conducted to examine the impacts of BMF, BC, and combined BMF and BC (CMB) on the mobility of chromium (Cr) and the agronomic characteristics of flue-cured tobacco. Compared with the control, BMF, BC, and CMB significantly reduced the concentrations of diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (DTPA) extractable Cr in soils by 29.07-29.75%, 45.35-48.54%, and 34.21-37.92%, respectively. In comparison to the application of BMF and BC alone, co-application reduced the availability of Cr in soil via increasing the adsorption of soil Cr and soil enzyme activity, which resulted in the decrease of Cr content and bioconcentration factor and in plants. Moreover, the combined application increased the plant height, stem diameter, leaf area, total root area, root tip number, and root activity of tobacco, which leaded to increase in leaf and root biomass by 11.40-67.01% and 23.91-50.74%, respectively. Therefore, the application of CMB can reduce the heavy metal residues in tobacco leaves and improve tobacco yield and quality.

Effective enrichment of anaerobic ammonia oxidation sludge with feast-starvation strategy: activity, sedimentation, growth kinetics, and microbial community.

To address the issue of floating and loss of floc sludge caused by gas production in anaerobic ammonia oxidation (anammox) reactors, this study proposes a limited nitrite supply strategy to regulate gas production during the settling and enhance sludge retention. Results indicate that the effluent suspended solids in the anammox reactor can be reduced to as low as 0.11 g/L under specific feast-starvation conditions. Even under long-term intermittent nitrite-starvation stress, the maximum growth rate of Candidatus_Kuenenia can still reach 0.085d-1, with its abundance increasing from 0.47% to 8.83% within 69 days. Although the combined effects of starvation and sedimentation would lead to a temporary decrease in anammox activity, this reversible inhibition can be fully restored through substrate intervention. The limited nitrite supply strategy promotes the sedimentation of anammox sludge without significantly affecting its growth rate, and effective sludge retention is crucial for enriching anammox sludge during initial cultivation.

Resilience of anammox application from sidestream to mainstream: A combined system coupling denitrification, partial nitritation and partial denitrification with anammox.

Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) is a potential process to achieve the neutralization of energy and carbon. Due to the low temperature and variation of municipal sewage, the application of mainstream anammox is hard to be implemented. For spreading mainstream anammox in practice, several key issues and bottlenecks including the start-up, stable NO2--N supply, maintenance and dominance of AnAOB with high activity, prevention of NO3--N buildup, reduction of sludge loss, adaption to the seasonal temperature and alleviation of COD impacts on AnAOB are discussed and summarized in this review in order to improve its startup, stable operation and resilience of mainstream anammox. Hence a combined biological nitrogen removal (CBNR) system based on conventional denitrification, shortcut nitrification-denitrification, Partial Nitritation and partial Denitrification combined Anammox (PANDA) process through the management of organic matter and nitrate is proposed correspondingly aiming at adaptation to the variations of seasonal temperature and pollutants in influent.

[Nitrite Regulation During Start-up of Combined Partial Nitritation and ANAMMOX Process].

Two types of full-scale reactors(SBR, 116.6 m3, activated sludge process; SBBR, 64.8 m3, activated sludge and biofilm process) were inoculated with activated sludge from a swine wastewater treatment plant. The effect of NO2--N concentration on ANAMMOX was investigated in the reactors during the start-up of the combined partial nitritation and ANAMMOX(CPNA) process by controlling the dissolved oxygen(DO), aeration mode, and NaNO2 dosing. The results showed that the SBBR was more suitable for rapid start-up of partial nitritation under the same operation conditions. Despite NO2--N inhibition(100-129 mg·L-1, 7 days), the ANAMMOX process was successfully started by the SBR on day 39, and the total nitrogen removal rate and efficiency(TNRR and TNRE) were 0.069 kg·(m3·d) -1 and 23.3%, respectively. However, 17 days of NO2--N inhibition(129-286 mg·L-1) had an unrecoverable effect on ANAMMOX activity in the SBBR. By adding NaNO2, the SBR successfully started the CPNA process on day 77. The TNRR, TNRE, and activity of ANAMMOX from day 51 to 77 increased rapidly from 0.070 to 0.336 kg·(m3·d) -1, 16.0% to 52.2%, and 0.012 to 0.307 kg·(kg·d) -1, respectively. The gene copy concentration of AOB and ANAMMOX bacteria in the SBR increased from the original 8.06×106 and 4.42×104 copies·mL-1 to 1.02×109 and 1.77×107 copies·mL-1, respectively, which indicated that the rapid enrichment of AOB and ANAMMOX bacteria in the SBR was achieved mainly by controlling DO, aeration mode, and NaNO2 dosing. Reasonable nitrite regulation is the key for the start of the CPNA process.

In situ startup of a full-scale combined partial nitritation and anammox process treating swine digestate by regulation of nitrite and dissolved oxygen.

A challenge during the startup of the combined partial nitritation and anammox process is how to balance dissolved oxygen control and nitrite accumulation for converting partial nitritation into anammox, maintaining stable partial nitritation and promoting growth of anammox bacteria. An innovative regulation strategy of nitrite dosing and dissolved oxygen control in this study was developed to achieve the rapid startup of a full-scale combined partial nitritation and anammox reactor within 77 days and the total nitrogen removal rate of reactor was 0.097 kg N/kgMLSS·d-1, and the activity and gene copy concentration of anammox bacteria reached 0.307 kg N/kgMLVSS·d-1 and 7.79 × 109 copies/gMLVSS, respectively. Microbial community analysis revealed that Candidatus_Kuenenia and Nitrosomonas were the dominant nitrogen transformation bacteria with an abundance of 2.49% and 14.86%, respectively. This study offers a new method for rapid startup and spreading application of the full-scale anammox process.