Insights into chronic zinc oxide nanoparticle stress responses of biological nitrogen removal system with nitrous oxide emission and its recovery potential

Jinyu Ye; Huan Gao; Carlos Domingo-Félez; Junkang Wu; Manjun Zhan; Ran Yu; Barth F Smets

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2021.124797

Insights into chronic zinc oxide nanoparticle stress responses of biological nitrogen removal system with nitrous oxide emission and its recovery potential

Bioresour Technol. 2021 May:327:124797. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.124797. Epub 2021 Feb 2.

Authors

Jinyu Ye¹, Huan Gao², Carlos Domingo-Félez³, Junkang Wu⁴, Manjun Zhan⁵, Ran Yu⁶, Barth F Smets³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, School of Energy and Environment, Wuxi Engineering Research Center of Taihu Lake Water Environment, Key Laboratory of Environmental Medicine Engineering, Ministry of Education, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210096, China; Department of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby 2800, Denmark.
² Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, School of Energy and Environment, Wuxi Engineering Research Center of Taihu Lake Water Environment, Key Laboratory of Environmental Medicine Engineering, Ministry of Education, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210096, China.
³ Department of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby 2800, Denmark.
⁴ Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, School of Energy and Environment, Wuxi Engineering Research Center of Taihu Lake Water Environment, Key Laboratory of Environmental Medicine Engineering, Ministry of Education, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210096, China; Department of Water Supply and Drainage Science and Engineering, College of Civil Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210037, China.
⁵ Nanjing Research Institute of Environmental Protection, Nanjing Environmental Protection Bureau, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210013, China.
⁶ Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, School of Energy and Environment, Wuxi Engineering Research Center of Taihu Lake Water Environment, Key Laboratory of Environmental Medicine Engineering, Ministry of Education, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210096, China. Electronic address: yuran@seu.edu.cn.

PMID: 33592491
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.124797

Abstract

The nitrogen transformation performances and greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions in a sequencing batch reactor under chronic exposure to zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) were quantified and the system's self-recovery potentials were assessed. ZnO NPs posed a dose-dependent depression effect on the removal efficiencies of ammonia nitrogen (NH₄⁺-N) and total nitrogen (TN), and the N₂O emissions. The suppressed N₂O emissions had a positive relationship with the activity ratios of nitrite/NO reductases and N₂O reductase, and were expected to be caused by the inhibited heterotrophic denitrification process. The inhibition of glucose metabolism key enzymes and electron transport chain activities would be responsible for the heterotrophic denitrification performances deterioration. Furthermore, the removal efficiencies of NH₄⁺-N and TN were recovered to control levels through the nitrite-shunt. However, the N₂O emission increased significantly above the control during the recovery period mainly due to the irreversibility of the depressed nitrite oxidation activities.

Keywords: Biological nitrogen removal; Electron transport; N(2)O emission; Recovery potential; Zinc oxide nanoparticle.

MeSH terms

Bioreactors
Denitrification
Nanoparticles*
Nitrogen
Nitrous Oxide
Zinc Oxide*

Substances

Nitrous Oxide
Nitrogen
Zinc Oxide