Oxidation and Decomposition Kinetics of Thiourea Oxides

Growth and genetic analysis of Pseudomonas BT1 in a high-thiourea environment reveals the mechanisms by which it restores the ability to remove ammonia nitrogen from wastewater

Thiourea is widely present in wastewater and can inhibit the nitrification process, inducing the collapse of the nitrification system in sewage treatment plants. Pseudomonas BT1 can restore the ammonia nitrogen removal ability of wastewater treatment processes in which the nitrification system due to thiourea. However, the genetic mechanisms for BT1 are still unclear. In this study, we reported the first genome assembly for Pseudomonas BT1, which has a genome size of 5,576,102 bp and 5,115 predicted genes. Complete C and S metabolic cycles were identified in its genome, and some intersecting intermediate products were found in these cycles. BT1 can grow well and remove ammonia nitrogen at different thiourea concentrations, but it showed a better removal ability in high-thiourea environments. The longest gene activity stage of BT1 was observed in the high-thiourea environments by RNA sequencing, and genes related to maintaining intracellular copper homeostasis were highly expressed during the S metabolism process, which may be the key to restoring the ammonia nitrogen removal ability. Enzymes detected during the N and S cycles showed that BT1 reacts with thiourea to produce hydrogen but not sulphate, suggesting that BT1 may have genes that are involved in thiourea hydrolysis. In conclusion, the high-quality assembly of BT1 provides a valuable resource for analyzing its biological process and molecular mechanisms for thiourea metabolism. BT1 shows great application potential for the removal of thiourea from sewage treatment plants.

Kinetics and Mechanism of the Oxidation of Thiourea Dioxide by Iodine in a Slightly Acidic Medium

The thiourea dioxide (TDO)-iodine reaction was investigated spectrophotometrically monitoring the consumption of total amount of iodine at 468 nm, at T = 25.0 ± 0.1 °C, and at 0.5 M ionic strength in buffered slightly acidic medium. The nitrogen- and carbon-containing products were found to be ammonium ion and dissolved carbon dioxide, respectively, while from sulfur part sulfate ion was exclusively detected, when fresh TDO solution was used. The stoichiometry of the reaction was established as 2I₂ + TDO + 4H₂O → SO₄^2- + 2NH₄⁺ + 4I^- + CO₂ + 4H⁺ indicating a strict 2:1 stoichiometric ratio. However, using aged TDO solution this stoichiometric ratio is shifted to lower values suggesting the formation of elementary sulfur augmented by the 2TDO + I₂ + 4H₂O → S + SO₄^2- + 4NH₄⁺ + 2I^- + 2CO₂ hypothetical limiting stoichiometry. We also confirmed experimentally that in aqueous solution TDO slowly rearranges into an unindentified species. This species then produces elementary sulfur at a later stage of the aging process via subsequent reactions accounting for a loss of reducing power. The direct reaction between TDO and iodine was found to be relatively rapid and completed within seconds in absence of initially added iodide ion. Formation of the latter ion, however, strongly inhibits the oxidation process; hence, the system is autoinhibitory with respect to iodide ion. Furthermore, increase of pH markedly accelerates the reaction as well. These observations suggest that a short-lived steady-state intermediate (iodinated TDO) is produced in a rapid pre-equilibrium, where iodide and hydrogen ions are also involved. A nine-step kinetic model, to be able to describe the most important characteristics of the experimental curves with four fitted parameters, is proposed and discussed.