Biocompatibility and biodegradability of polyacrylate/ZnO nanocomposite during the activated sludge treatment process

PLoS One. 2018 Nov 1;13(11):e0205990. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0205990. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

Polymer nanocomposites have been widely used in the preparation of coating agents in the leather industry. Considering the complex bio-effect and ecological risk of nanomaterial, research on the biodegradability and biocompatibility of polyacrylate/metal nanocomposites in activated sludge system is of specific significance. We investigated the change of the bacterial community and diversity of activated sludge fed with polyacrylate/ZnO nanocomposites in both low (500 mg COD /L) and high (1000 mg COD/L) doses. COD removal, dehydrogenase activity, and total protein of activated sludge system were monitored in all treatments over 30 days. The results demonstrated that the exposure to both polyacrylate/ ZnO nanocomposite and polyacrylate decreased the dehydrogenase activity at early stage comparing to the control, but had no significant influence on COD removal. Overall, the bacterial communities in activated sludge were resistant to polyacrylate/ZnO nanocomposites, and had higher levels of metabolic activity, protein accumulation and bioavailability when exposed to these chemicals comparing to the control especially at later stages of incubation (15-30 days), which indicated that these polyacrylate/ZnO nanocomposites of certain amount were biocompatible to activated sludge system.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acrylic Resins / chemistry
  • Bacteria / chemistry
  • Biodegradable Plastics / chemistry*
  • Biodegradation, Environmental*
  • Bioreactors / microbiology
  • Humans
  • Nanocomposites / chemistry*
  • Sewage / chemistry
  • Sewage / microbiology
  • Waste Disposal, Fluid*
  • Zinc Oxide / chemistry

Substances

  • Acrylic Resins
  • Biodegradable Plastics
  • Sewage
  • carbopol 940
  • Zinc Oxide

Grants and funding

Funding was provided by the major science and technology program for water pollution control and treatment (2017ZX07602-001) to MHR (http://nwpcp.mep.gov.cn/zxdt/bgs/), special research project of the education department of Shaanxi provincial government (16JK1081) to ZC (http://www.snedu.gov.cn/), and doctoral research fund Shaanxi University of Science and Technology (BJ12-29) to ZC (http://www.sust.edu.cn/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.