The impacts of silver nanoparticles and silver ions on wastewater biological phosphorous removal and the mechanisms

Abstract

The effects of AgNPs and Ag+ (0-5 mg/L) on wastewater enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) were investigated. The phosphorus removal efficiency was maintained at 99% no matter what the concentrations of AgNPs were, but it was decreased to 48.8% at Ag+ of 1 mg/L, and no net phosphorus was removed at Ag+ greater than 2 mg/L in the batch tests. The uptake of wastewater carbon source and the anaerobic and aerobic transformations of phosphorus, polyhydoxyalkanoates and glycogen were inhibited by Ag+ other than AgNPs. Ag+ showed stronger toxicity on polyphosphate accumulating organisms (PAOs) than glycogen accumulating organisms (GAOs). Further investigation revealed that the decrease in anaerobic phosphorus release by Ag+ was caused by the inhibition on the activities of adenylate kinase and expolyphosphatase, whereas the decrease in aerobic phosphorus uptake was due to the suppression in energy generation for phosphorus uptake. However, the presence of either AgNPs or Ag+ did not lead to cell leakage and membrane damage.