Performance and enhancement mechanism of redox mediator for nitrate removal in immobilized bioreactor with preponderant microbes

Shuai Zhang; Amjad Ali; Junfeng Su; Tinglin Huang; Min Li

doi:10.1016/j.watres.2021.117899

Performance and enhancement mechanism of redox mediator for nitrate removal in immobilized bioreactor with preponderant microbes

Water Res. 2022 Feb 1:209:117899. doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2021.117899. Epub 2021 Nov 27.

Authors

Shuai Zhang¹, Amjad Ali¹, Junfeng Su², Tinglin Huang¹, Min Li¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Environmental and Municipal Engineering, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi'an 710055, China; Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Environmental Engineering, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi'an 710055, China.
² School of Environmental and Municipal Engineering, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi'an 710055, China; Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Environmental Engineering, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi'an 710055, China. Electronic address: sjf1977518@sina.com.

PMID: 34861436
DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2021.117899

Abstract

The acceleration of nitrate removal in wastewater treatment by redox mediator (RM) is greatly weakened due to wash-out loss and mass transfer resistance (low hydrophilia) of RM during operation. In this study, an RM reactor with the fixed 1-Amino-4-hydroxyanthraquinone (AHAQ) and three core strains was established and achieved high nitrate removal efficiency (NRE) under low carbon to nitrogen ratio (C/N) and short hydraulic retention time (HRT) conditions, with the maximum efficiency of 99.41% (14.00 mg L^-1 h^-1) and average improvement by 11.97% (1.41 mg L^-1 h^-1). This acceleration led to more proportion of carbon consumption by denitrifying bacteria and improved their competitiveness against others in carbon deficiency, although resulting in nitrite accumulation (NIA) in lower C/N. The RM reactor induced the decorrelation tendencies between NRE and active extracellular organics and more sensitive denitrification toward C/N, which favored the stability of effluent organics and biological activities. The increase of oxidative phosphorylation and ubiquinone and other terpenoid-quinone biosynthesis pathway suggested electron transport activity was potentially enhanced by AHAQ. Although the lower C/N deteriorated the reactor NRE, the abundances of amino acids-, fatty acids- and carbohydrate-related metabolisms (45% of the total up-regulating pathways) were enhanced to utilize carbon source effectively. Meanwhile, the enhanced phosphotransferase system facilitated the balance between carbon and nitrogen metabolism. These indicated the changes in biological strategy to grow better and resist the adverse condition. This study highlighted the superior NRE by AHAQ in an immobilized reactor with core strains and more importantly, extended the RM application in wastewater treatment.

Keywords: Competitiveness; Metagenome; Nitrate removal; Preponderant microbes; Redox mediator reactor.