Quorum sensing mediated response mechanism of anammox consortia to anionic surfactant: Molecular simulation and molecular evidence

The widespread use of surfactants raise challenges to biological wastewater treatment. Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) process has the potential to treat wastewater containing anionic surfactants, but the response of anammox consortia at the molecular level under long-term exposure is unclear. Using high-throughput sequencing and gene quantification, combined with molecular docking, the effect of sodium dodecyl sulfonate (SDS) on anammox consortia were investigated. Levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) might be lower than the threshold of oxidative damage, while the increase of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) represented the cell membrane damage. Decreased abundance of functional genes (hdh, hzsA and nirS) indicated the decrease of the anammox bacterial abundance. Trace amounts of N-acyl homoserine lactone (AHL, C6-HSL, C8-HSL and C12-HSL) contained in influent could induce endogenous quorum sensing (QS), which could regulate the correlation between functional bacteria to optimize the microbial community and strengthen the resistance of anammox consortia to SDS. In addition, the proliferation of disinfectant resistance genes might increase the environmental pathogenicity of sewage discharge. This work highlights the potential response mechanism of anammox consortium to surfactants and provides a universal microbial-friendly bioenhancement strategy based on QS.

Nitrogen removal by Rhodococcus sp. SY24 under linear alkylbenzene sulphonate stress: Carbon source metabolism activity, kinetics, and optimum culture conditions

Artificial intervention combined with stress acclimation was used to screen a heterotrophic nitrifying-aerobic denitrifying (HN-AD) bacterial, strain Rhodococcus SY24, resistant to linear alkylbenzenesulfonic acid (LAS) stress. When LAS was<15 mg/L, strain SY24 performed better cell growth and carbon source metabolism activity. The maximum nitrification and denitrification rates of SY24 under LAS stress could reach 1.18 mg/L/h and 1.05 mg/L/h, respectively, which were 13.80 % and 8.81 % higher than those of the original strain CPZ24. Higher LAS tolerance was seen in the functional genes (amoA, nxrA, napA, narG, nirK, nirS, norB, and nosZ). Response surface modeling revealed that 2 mg/L LAS, sodium succinate as a carbon source, 190 rams, and carbon/nitrogen 11 were the ideal culture conditions for SY24 to nitrogen removal under the LAS environment. This study offered a new screening strategy for the functional species, and strain SY24 showed significant LAS tolerance and HN-AD potential.

Bioremoval of estrogens by laccase immobilized onto polyacrylonitrile/polyethersulfone material: Effect of inhibitors and mediators, process characterization and catalytic pathways determination

The presence of micropollutants in water, wastewater and soil are a global problem due to their persistent effect on ecosystems and human health. Although there are many methods of removal of environmental pollutants, they are often ineffective for degradation of pharmaceuticals, including estrogens. In presented work we proposed fabrication of electrospun material from polyacrylonitrile/polyethersulfone (PAN/PES) as a support for laccase immobilization by covalent binding. Oxidoreductase was attached to the electrospun fibers using polydopamine as a linker and produced system was used for degradation of two estrogens: 17β-estradiol (E2) and 17α-ethynylestradiol (EE2). It was shown that 92% of E2 and 100% of EE2 were degraded after 24 h of the process. Moreover, the effect of surfactants, metal ions and mediators on conversion efficiencies of estrogens was investigated and it was confirmed that immobilized enzyme possessed higher resistance to inhibitory agents as well as thermal and storage stability, compared to its native form. Finally, estrogenic activities of E2 and EE2 solutions decreased around 99% and 87%, respectively, after enzymatic conversion, that corresponds to significant reduction of the total organic carbon and formation of low-toxic final products of estrogens degradation.

Linear anionic surfactant (SDBS) destabilized anammox process through sludge disaggregation and metabolic inhibition

The increase of emerging contaminants, such as surfactants, is one of the major challenges to biological wastewater treatment. However, the potential impact of linear alkylbenzene sulphonates (LAS), a major class of anionic surfactants, on anammox process is unclear. The long-term effects of sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDBS, as a model LAS) on reactor performance, microbial community and sludge properties were investigated in this study. The presence of 5 mg L^-1 SDBS promoted the release of extracellular microbial products from anammox granules and the wash-out of anammox population via effluent. Despite sludge disaggregation, the reactor performance was robust to the exposure of 5 mg L^-1 SDBS due to functional redundancy. With the further increase of SDBS to 10 mg L^-1, the metabolic activity of anammox biomass and the transcription and post-translation of hydrazine dehydrogenase were significantly decreased. The potential mechanism might be associated with the damage on cell membrane that induced the leakage of intracellular matrix. These results highlight the need to consider the potential risk of LAS to operation of anammox process in biological wastewater treatment plant.

Assessment of Anammox process against acute and long-term exposure of ZnO nanoparticles

The impacts of nanoparticles (NPs) on wastewater treatment have become a great concern because of their widespread applications. Although the acute responses of anammox bacteria to NPs have enhanced the knowledge about the potential risks of them, deep understanding of the cumulative impacts of NPs must be assessed. The purpose of this research was therefore to further extend the current knowledge by evaluating both acute and long-term effects of Zinc oxide (ZnO) NPs on Anammox process based on nitrogen removal performance, self-recovery ability and microbial community structure. The acute exposure tests indicated that, the median inhibition concentration (IC50) of ZnO NPs on Anammox process was 84.7 mg/L (54.82 mg ZnO NPs/g VSS). Acute exposure of 200 mg/L ZnO NPs (117.54 mg Zn/g VSS) caused 80% inhibition in batch assays while the long-term inhibition dosage was 100 mg/L ZnO NPs (187.50 mg ZnO NPs/g VSS) corresponding to 1022 mg/L total Zn (1916.27 mg Zn/g VSS) in the reactor due to the accumulation of NPs. Total, soluble and biomass-associated Zn concentrations were measured throughout the long-term exposure to observe the behavior of ZnO NPs in the reactor. Total Zn in the reactor was cumulatively increased and mostly originated from biomass-associated Zn. Following the long-term inhibition tests, self-recovery of Anammox process within 120 days demonstrated that, the ZnO NPs inhibition is reversible for the applied dose. Furthermore, next generation sequencing results indicated a symbiotic relationship between the microbial groups in the anammox bioreactor while relative abundance of Candidatus (Ca.) Brocadiaceae family showed a decrease parallel to the deterioration in nitrogen removal performance of bioreactor. At the end of the long-term exposure studies, 48.76% decline on anammox quantity was detected.

Performance and Biomass Characteristics of SBRs Treating High-Salinity Wastewater at Presence of Anionic Surfactants

Sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate (SDBS) and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), as two anionic surfactants, have diffused into environments such as surface water and ground water due to extensive and improper use. The effects on the removal performance and microbial community of sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) need to be investigated in the treatment of saline wastewater containing 20 g/L NaCl. The presence of SDS and SDBS could decrease the removal efficiencies of ammonia nitrogen and total phosphorus, and the effect of SDS was more significant. The effect of surfactants on the removal mainly occurred during the aeration phase. Adding SDS and SDBS can reduce the content of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). In addition, SDS and SDBS also can reduce the inhibition of high salinity on sludge activity. A total of 16 s of rRNA sequencing analysis showed that the addition of surfactants reduced the diversity of microbial communities; besides, the relative abundance value of the dominant population Proteobacteria increased from 91.66% to 97.12% and 93.48% when SDS and SDBS were added into the system, respectively.

Antagonistic effect of zinc oxide nanoparticle and surfactant on anaerobic digestion: Focusing on the microbial community changes and interactive mechanism

The objective of this study was to evaluate the antagonistic effect of emerging pollutants of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) on anaerobic digestion and explore their potential mechanism. The results indicated that at a low inhibitory concentration of ZnO NPs (1.0 mM), the practical co-inhibition was decreased by 24% and 18% in co-existence of 50 mg/L SDS and 300 mg/L SDS, respectively. More importantly, the co-existence of 300 mg/L SDS greatly enhanced methanogenesis of organics in seriously inhibited case (2.0 mM of ZnO NPs). The microbial community analysis showed that co-existed SDS enhanced the growth of Methanothrix, Methanosarcina and Methanobacterium. The antagonistic enhancement could be attributed to the net charge reversal, partially agglomeration of ZnO NPs and/or reduction of Zn²⁺ release in the presence of SDS. These findings could provide useful information for evaluating the co-inhibition of SDS and ZnO NPs on biological processes.

Short-term impacts of Cu, CuO, ZnO and Ag nanoparticles (NPs) on anammox sludge: CuNPs make a difference

The increasing application of engineered nanoparticles (NPs) has posed an emerging challenge to wastewater treatment processes. The short-term impacts of CuNPs, CuONPs, ZnONPs and AgNPs on anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) process were investigated firstly in this study. CuONPs, ZnONPs and AgNPs up to 50mgg^-1 suspended solid (SS) did not affect anammox activity, reactive oxygen species (ROS) production or cell membrane integrity. However, 1.25mgg^-1SS CuNPs significantly inhibited the anammox activity and the loads that caused 50% inhibition were 4.64±1.24 and 3.27±0.79mgg^-1SS for anammox granules and flocs, respectively. 5mgg^-1SS CuNPs caused serious accumulation of the toxic intermediate N₂H₄. Furthermore, CuNPs interacted with extracellular polymeric substances by specifically bonding to tyrosine or tryptophan-containing groups, C-O-C in polysaccharides and -OH in polymeric compounds. Therefore, this study calls for more attention to the risks of NPs to the anammox-based processes.