Mixotrophic denitrification processes in basalt fiber bio-carriers drive effective treatment of low carbon/nitrogen lithium slurry wastewater

Huicheng Ni; Muhammad Arslan; Zhishui Liang; Chencheng Wang; Zhijun Luo; Junchao Qian; Zhiren Wu; Mohamed Gamal El-Din

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2022.128036

Mixotrophic denitrification processes in basalt fiber bio-carriers drive effective treatment of low carbon/nitrogen lithium slurry wastewater

Bioresour Technol. 2022 Nov:364:128036. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2022.128036. Epub 2022 Sep 27.

Authors

Huicheng Ni¹, Muhammad Arslan², Zhishui Liang³, Chencheng Wang⁴, Zhijun Luo⁴, Junchao Qian⁵, Zhiren Wu⁴, Mohamed Gamal El-Din⁶

Affiliations

¹ School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang 212003, Jiangsu Province, PR China.
² Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada.
³ School of Civil Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, Jiangsu Province, PR China.
⁴ School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, Jiangsu Province, PR China.
⁵ Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Environment Functional Materials, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, SuZhou 215009, Jiangsu Province, PR China.
⁶ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada; School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, Jiangsu Province, PR China. Electronic address: mgamalel-din@ualberta.ca.

PMID: 36174892
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2022.128036

Abstract

Lithium battery slurry wastewater was successfully treatedby using basalt fiber (BF) bio-carriers in a biological contact oxidation reactor. This resulted in a significant reduction of COD (93.3 ± 0.5 %) and total nitrogen (77.4 ± 1.0 %) at 12 h of HRT and dissolved oxygen (DO) of 0-1 mg/L. The modified Stover-Kincannon model indicated that the total nitrogen removal rate was 4.462 kg/m³/d in R-BF while the substrate maximum specific reaction rate (q_max) in the Monod model was 0.323 mg-N/mgVSS/d. A stable internal environment was established within the bio-nest. Metataxonomic analysis revealed the presence of denitrification and decarbonization bacteria, combined heterotrophic nitrification-aerobic denitrification bacteria, nitrite-oxidizing bacteria, and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria. Functional analysis displayed changes related to (aerobic)chemoheterotrophy, nitrogen respiration, nitrate reduction, respiration/denitrification of nitrite, and nitrate in R-BF. The study proposes a novel approach to achieve denitrification for the treatment of lithium slurry wastewater at low C/N conditions.

Keywords: Basalt fiber; Bio-carrier; Carbon to nitrogen ratio (C/N); Nitrogen removal; Simultaneous nitrification and denitrification (SND).