Treatment of high-salinity chemical wastewater by indigenous bacteria--bioaugmented contact oxidation

Isolation and screening of sulfur-oxidizing bacteria from coast of Bhavnagar, India, and formulation of consortium for bioremediation

Reduced sulfur compounds are a nuisance in coastal industries causing heavy economical as well as ecological loss. One such compound, hydrogen sulfide, is proven toxic to aquatic animals as it interferes with their respiration and metabolism as well as overall development, thereby causing direct increase in mortality. Typically, 96-h LC₅₀ values to freshwater and marine fishes are 0-25µM and 525-700µM, respectively. Management of sulfide and other reduced sulfur compounds from aquaculture water and sediment using bioremediating sulfur-oxidizing bacteria as probiotics has attracted attention in recent decades due to its efficiency and minimized environmental effects. In the present study, 201 native and indigenous probiotic candidates were isolated, from various coastal environments. The prospective candidates were screened based on pH reduction and 19 sulfur-oxidizing bacteria were selected and tested for salt tolerance. Further screening was done based on biosafety, ability to produce sulfate by oxidizing thiosulfate, and 16S rRNA-based identification to obtain nine probiotic candidates. Three strains (Enterobacter ludwigii HS1-SOB, Pseudomonas stutzeri B6-SOB, and Cytobacillus firmus C8-SOB) exerting highest sulfate-ion production were selected for formulating a probiotic consortium using mixture design matrix. The optimal composition was determined to be equal ratios of the three isolates that yielded 0.083 mM of sulfate from thiosulfate broth medium at room temperature in 7 days. This is a standalone report of sulfur-oxidizing probiotic consortium composed of the said bacteria. The consortium may be used as a strong tool for remediation of reduced sulfur in aquaculture and associated coastal environments.

A Study of a Composite Biofilm Reactor for the Treatment of Mariculture Wastewater: Performance and Microbial Communities

Mariculture wastewater is one of the main sources of saline wastewater. This study used a waterfall aeration biofilm reactor combined with a sequencing batch reactor (WABR-SBR) to treat simulated mariculture sewage. Despite the high inhibition by salinity, the reactor maintained a high removal efficiency for organic matter and ammonium nitrogen. The ammonia nitrogen removal rate was greater than 99%, while that for nitrite, which is extremely toxic to farmed animals, was greater than 80%. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy showed that salinity affected the surface structure and composition of biofilms, which became compact and secreted more solute to resist the impact of salinity. High throughput 16S rRNA sequencing revealed that the main phyla in the biofilms were Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and Bacteroidetes. Metagenomic annotation of genes further indicated nitrogen metabolism pathways under high salinity. The conclusions of this study can provide a theoretical foundation for the biological treatment of high-salt wastewater and provide a technical reference for further application of the WABR-SBR composite system.

An Eco-friendly Iron Cathode Electro-Fenton System Coupled With a pH-Regulation Electrolysis Cell for p-nitrophenol Degradation

The high consumption of salt reagents and strict pH control are still bottlenecks for the full-scale application of the Fenton reaction. In this work, a novel eco-friendly iron cathode electrochemical Fenton (ICEF) system coupled with a pH-regulation divided electrolysis cell was developed. In a pH-regulation divided electrolysis system, the desired pH for an effective Fenton reaction and for a neutral treated media could be obtained by H₂O splitting into H⁺ and OH⁻ at the anode and cathode, respectively. In an ICEF system, an iron plate was used as the cathode to inhibit the release of iron ions and promote the reduction of Fe³⁺ to Fe²⁺. It was found that when a potential of 1.2 V/SCE was applied on the iron cathode, 98% of p-nitrophenol was removed in the combined system after 30 min with continuously adding 200 mg/L of H₂O₂. Meanwhile, a COD and TOC removal efficiency of 79 and 60% was obtained, respectively. In this case, the conductivity just slightly increased from 4.35 to 4.37 mS/cm, minimizing the increase of water salinity, as compared with the conventional Fenton process. Generally, this combined system was eco-friendly, energy-efficient, and has the potential of being a promising technology for the removal of bio-refractory organic pollutants from wastewaters.

Potential of mercury-tolerant bacteria for bio-uptake of mercury leached from discarded fluorescent lamps

In this study, ten bacterial strains were found to be mercury resistant after their isolation from Qatari coastal sediments. Tolerance was found to be up to 100-150 ppm for five strains. Those strains had optimum growth conditions at salinity level of 10 ppm NaCl and pH 7-8. Starting from a concentration 7.9 ppm of mercury extracted from fluorescent lamps and after 6 days of incubation at 37 °C, two isolated strains HA6 (Bacillus spp.) and HA9 (Acinetobacter sp.) showed 96.7% and 98.9% of mercury bio-uptake efficiency, respectively. Other strains were capable of removing more than 60% of extracted mercury.

Effects of adding betaine on biological nitrogen and phosphorus removal from simulated pickled vegetables wastewater

Laboratory-scale sequencing batch reactors (SBR) were used to examine the effects of adding dosage and ways of adding betaine on nitrogen and phosphorus removal from simulated pickled vegetables wastewater under two different concentrations of salt. The activated sludge was pre-acclimated in a salt environment prior to the experiment. Adding 0.5-2.0 mM betaine to the synthetic wastewater, all the levels were found to be effective at improving the ammonium nitrogen (NH₄⁺-N) removal with increased salt concentrations from 8 to 16 g/L, in which 1.0 mM betaine was found to be the most effective. Rapid increase of salt concentration, however, showed to have a more pronounced negative effect on total phosphorus (TP) removal. Nevertheless, betaine-added enhanced TP removal was superior to that of NH₄⁺-N in high salt content conditions compared with the absence of betaine. Both NH₄⁺-N and TP removal rate were not significantly influenced by the ways of betaine-adding. Interestingly, the dynamic process on phosphate removal in a single cycle of SBR operation, was showed to have anomalous aerobic phosphorus desorption and anaerobic phosphorus absorption, the former could be caused by insufficiency of biodegradable organic matters and/or longer aeration time, and the latter may be attributed to the function of denitrifying phosphorus-accumulating bacteria in the sludge. As a result, a moderate betaine dosage can obtain a sufficient improvement effect for biological nitrogen and phosphorus removal even under high salt stress.

Nitrogen Source Stabilization of Quorum Sensing in the Pseudomonas aeruginosa Bioaugmentation Strain SD-1

Pseudomonas aeruginosa SD-1 is efficient at degrading aromatic compounds and can therefore contribute to the bioremediation of wastewater. P. aeruginosa uses quorum sensing (QS) to regulate the production of numerous secreted "public goods." In wastewater bioaugmentation applications, there are myriad nitrogen sources, and we queried whether various nitrogen sources impact the stabilities of both QS and the bacterial populations. In a laboratory strain of P. aeruginosa, PAO1, the absence of a nitrogen source has been shown to destabilize these populations through the emergence of QS mutant "cheaters." We tested the ability of SD-1 to grow in casein broth, a condition that requires QS for growth, when the nitrogen source with either NH₄Cl, NaNO₃, or NaNO₂ or with no added nitrogen source. There was great variability in susceptibility to invasion by QS mutant cheaters and, by extension, the stability of the SD-1 population. When grown with NH₄Cl as an extra nitrogen source, no population collapse was observed; by contrast, two-thirds of cultures grown in the presence of NaNO₂ collapsed. In the populations that collapsed, the frequency of social cheaters exceeded 40%. NaNO₃ and NaNO₂ directly favor QS mutants of P. aeruginosa SD-1. Although the mechanism by which these nitrogen sources act is not clear, these data indicate that the metabolism of nitrogen can affect the stability of bacterial populations, an important observation for continuing industrial applications with this species.IMPORTANCE Bioaugmentation as a method to help remediate wastewater pollutant streams holds significant potential to enhance traditional methods of treatment. Addition of microbes that can catabolize organic pollutants can be an effective method to remove several toxic compounds. Such bioaugmented strains of bacteria have been shown to be susceptible to competition from the microbiota that are present in wastewater streams, limiting their potential effectiveness. Here, we show that bioaugmentation strains of bacteria might also be susceptible to invasion by social cheaters and that the nitrogen sources available in the wastewater might influence the ability of cheaters to overtake the bioaugmentation strains. Our results imply that control over the nitrogen sources in a wastewater stream or selective addition of certain nitrogen sources could help stabilize bioaugmentation strains of bacteria.

Enrichment and immobilization of sulfide removal microbiota applied for environmental biological remediation of aquaculture area

To remove sulfide in the deteriorating aquaculture sediment and water, sulfide-oxidizing microbiota was enriched from Jiaozhou Bay, China, by using sulfide-rich medium. Composition and structure of microbial communities in the enrichments were investigated by 16S rDNA molecular biotechniques. Results showed that microbial community structure continuously shifted and the abundance of sulfate reducing bacteria, i.e., Desulfobacterium, Desulfococcus and Desulfobacca apparently declined. Several halophile genera, Vibrio, Marinobacter, Pseudomonas, Prochlorococcus, Pediococcus and Thiobacillus predominated finally in the microbiota. The enriched microbiota was capable of removing a maximum of 1000 mg/L sulfide within 12 h with 10% inoculum at pH 7.0, 20-30 °C. After immobilized, the microbiota presented excellent resistance to impact and could completely remove 600 mg/L sulfide in 12 h. Moreover, the immobilized microbiota recovered well even recycled for five times. In conclusion, the immobilized sulfide-removing microbiota showed a quite promising application for biological restoring of sulfide-rich aquaculture environment.

Organic matter removal from saline agricultural drainage wastewater using a moving bed biofilm reactor

We investigated the effect of salinity on the removal of organics and ammonium from agricultural drainage wastewater (ADW) using moving bed biofilm reactors (MBBRs). Under the typical salinity level of ADW (total dissolved solids (TDS) concentration up to 2.5 g·L(-1)), microorganisms were acclimated for 40 days on plastic carriers and a stable slime layer of attached biofilm was formed. Next, six batch mode MBBRs were set up and run under different salinity conditions (0.2-20 g-TDS·L(-1)). The removal efficiency of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and ammonium-nitrogen (NH4-N) in 6 hours decreased from 98 and 68% to 64 and 21% with increasing salt concentrations from 2.5 to 20 g-TDS·L(-1), respectively. In addition, at decreasing salt levels of 0.2 g-TDS·L(-1), both COD removal and nitrification were slightly lowered. Kinetic analysis indicated that the first-order reaction rate constant (k1) and specific substrate utilization rate (U) with respect to the COD removal remained relatively constant (10.9-11.0 d(-1) and 13.1-16.1 g-COD-removed.g-biomass(-1)·d(-1), respectively) at the salinity range of 2.5-5.0 g-TDS·L(-1). In this study, the treated wastewater met the standard criteria of organic concentration for reuse in agricultural purposes, and the system performance remained relatively constant at the salinity range of typical ADW.

Characterization of halophilic bacterial communities in Turda Salt Mine (Romania)

Halophilic organisms are having adaptations to extreme salinity, the majority of them being Archaean, which have the ability to grow at extremely high salt concentrations, (from 3 % to 35 %). Level of salinity causes natural fluctuations in the halophilic populations that inhabit this particular habitat, raising problems in maintaining homeostasis of the osmotic pressure. Samples such as salt and water taken from Turda Salt Mine were analyzed in order to identify the eco-physiological bacterial groups. Considering the number of bacteria of each eco-physiological group, the bacterial indicators of salt quality (BISQ) were calculated and studied for each sample. The phosphatase, catalase and dehydrogenases enzymatic activities were quantitatively determined and the enzymatic indicators of salt quality (EISQ) were calculated. Bacterial isolates were analyzed using 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis. Universal bacterial primers, targeting the consensus region of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene were used. Analysis of a large fragment, of 1499 bp was performed to improve discrimination at the species level.