Water Environment Research最新文献

Bacteriophages have an important role in shaping bacterial diversity in ecosystems. The same is true for biotechnological processes, where microbiological consortia are used. Cooperation between microorganisms within wastewater treatment or biogas production unquestionably impacts the success of these processes. Therefore, in this review, we discussed the possibilities of using bacteriophages in complex biotechnological setups and tried to answer how far phages can be used in bioprocess engineering and what possibilities are currently available. Potentially, bacteriophages can be applied to wastewater treatment and biogas production in different manners, including their addition at the beginning of the process, at its end, directly to the substrates or the residues. All of these inlet points have certain advantages and disadvantages, which should be considered when phages are involved in the process. Being led by that thought, we also discussed the methods for finding bacteriophages in complex biotechnological processes and describing their activity. We have also discussed the challenges and opportunities that should be addressed with the application of phages in wastewater treatment or biogas production.

This study explores the adsorption of methylene blue (MB) from wastewater using pinecone residue, a low-cost and abundant biosorbent. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and particle size distribution were used to characterize the material. Particle size strongly influenced both the removal efficiency and the equilibrium capacity. The adsorption performance was optimized using response surface methodology and decision tree regression. Optimal conditions included a contact time > 45 min, an initial dye concentration > 37.5 mg L^-1, and a biosorbent dosage of 40-75 mg. Under these conditions, the equilibrium adsorption performance showed a significant improvement over previous studies. Kinetic modeling revealed that the Elovich model best represented the adsorption process, whereas the equilibrium data were most accurately described by the Langmuir isotherm, yielding a maximum monolayer adsorption capacity of 148.54 mg g^-1. Additionally, thermodynamic parameters confirmed the spontaneous, exothermic nature of the adsorption, although regeneration studies demonstrated the material's reusability, with increased adsorptive capacity after acid desorption cycles. The findings demonstrate the strong adsorption potential of pinecone residue, emphasizing its efficiency and sustainability for wastewater treatment applications.

This study investigates the effect of various electrode combinations on total organic carbon (TOC), chemical oxygen demand (COD), and turbidity reduction during the electrocoagulation (EC) treatment of rice mill effluent (RME). The EC experiments were conducted using stainless steel-aluminum (SS-Al), aluminum-aluminum (Al-Al), and iron-aluminum (Fe-Al) electrode combinations under identical operating conditions and constant current density. The sludge generated during EC of RME was characterized using SEM, EDX, and FTIR analysis. Batch EC experiments revealed that SS-Al exhibited superior treatment performance, achieving 73.3% TOC, 70.1% COD, and 88.2% turbidity removal within 90 min of process, with negligible improvement beyond 60 min. SEM images of sludge showed highly porous and agglomerated floc structures for SS-Al sludge, indicating effective sweep flocculation, while Al-Al sludge displayed smoother surfaces and Fe-Al sludge showed dense morphologies with localized cracking. EDX results confirmed dominance of electrode-derived elements, with Fe (55-70 wt.%) and O (20-30 wt.%) in Fe-based sludge and Al (35-50 wt.%) and O (40-55 wt.%) in Al-based sludge, along with trace elements (Cr, Ni, Mn, Si, P, S < 5 wt.%). FTIR spectra identified O-H stretching (3200-3500 cm^-1), H-O-H bending (1630-1650 cm^-1), Al-O-Si/Si-O-Si bands (1020-1120 cm^-1), and characteristic Fe-O (560-620 cm^-1) and Al-O (720-780 cm^-1) vibrations, confirming pollutant removal via hydroxide precipitation, adsorption, and charge neutralization. The findings highlight SS-Al as a durable and efficient electrode configuration in EC for sustainable RME treatment.

Emerging contaminants (ECs) such as pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors, pesticides, PFAS, dyes, microplastics, and personal care products are increasingly detected in municipal and industrial effluents at trace-to-mg/L levels, yet many are poorly removed by conventional treatment. This manuscript provides a focused, qualitative synthesis of smart nanoadsorbents (stimuli-responsive and engineered nanoenabled sorbents) for EC removal, emphasizing how surface chemistry, porosity, and responsive switching (pH, redox, light, magnetic, thermal, and multistimuli) can improve selectivity, adsorption kinetics, and regeneration. Novelty lies in integrating mechanistic adsorption concepts with a commercialization-oriented perspective: We compare reported systems qualitatively using practical readiness indicators (ease of separation and immobilization, reusability, fouling tolerance, secondary release risk, and anticipated cost and scale-up constraints) rather than capacity values alone. Across the surveyed literature, composite architectures (nanomaterials integrated with polymers, membranes, bio-supports, magnetic cores, or granulated matrices) consistently emerge as more deployable than free nanoparticles because they reduce aggregation and leaching while enabling continuous formats such as packed-bed cartridges, coating layers, and hybrid filtration-adsorption units. These insights support near-term industrial applications in polishing steps for hospital and municipal wastewater, textile and pharmaceutical effluents, landfill leachates, and decentralized point-of-use devices, while highlighting remaining gaps in standardized testing, life-cycle safety, and pilot-scale validation.

While ammonia-based aeration control (ABAC) significantly improves process efficiency in water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs), its performance is often limited by the difficulty of tuning proportional-integral (PI) controllers amidst dynamic loads and nonlinear reaction kinetics. This study proposed a systematic tuning approach that derives first-order plus deadtime (FOPDT) parameters from a reduced-order model based on empirical reactor hydraulics. Furthermore, the nonlinearity of Monod saturation kinetics, which describe the impact of dissolved oxygen (S_O2) on nitrification rates, is explicitly integrated into the feedback control structure to linearize the system response. The approach was validated via both a model-based simulator and full-scale implementation. In the model-based simulation, both controller structures provided stable performance, but the direct S_O2 controller showed nonlinear overshoot during high load periods, while the inclusion of Monod kinetics in ABAC linearized the response, particularly when tuned with the reduced-order model (mean absolute error (MAE) 0.09 mg N/L). At the full-scale plant, when tuned using the proposed method, the controller demonstrated stable performance and successfully attenuated dynamic loads to achieve a low 0.16 mg N/L MAE. These results demonstrate that combining reduced-order modeling with kinetic-based control structures offers a robust automatable alternative to heuristic tuning methods.

Lithium is a critical element for modern energy storage systems, particularly in batteries powering renewable energy technologies and electric vehicles. With global demand rapidly increasing, attention has shifted toward recovering lithium from unconventional sources such as desalination brine. This byproduct of brackish and seawater desalination contains lithium concentrations higher than those found in seawater, making it a valuable secondary resource. Recent advancements in recovery technologies-including metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), ion-imprinted polymers (IIPs), nanofiltration (NF), and capacitive deionization (CDI) and its variants (MCDI, HCDI, and FCDI)-offer promising pathways for efficient and sustainable lithium extraction. These technologies differ in selectivity, energy efficiency, scalability, and cost. MOFs and IIPs exhibit superior selectivity for lithium ions but are limited by high material costs, whereas CDI-based methods are more energy efficient, regenerative, and environmentally friendly. NF, though well established and scalable, often requires high pressure, increasing energy consumption. This review highlights the potential of hybrid systems that integrate the selectivity of advanced materials like MOFs and IIPs with the operational efficiency of CDI technologies. Such integrated approaches represent a sustainable and cost-effective route for large-scale lithium recovery from desalination brine, addressing both environmental and economic challenges associated with the global lithium supply.

The detoxification and degradation of petroleum refinery effluent (PRE) pose critical worldwide environmental challenges, with limited studies investigating the synergistic efficiency of bacterial consortia in enhancing bioremediation outcomes. This study investigates PRE biodegradation utilizing Acinetobacter calcoaceticus, Bacillus subtilis, and Pseudomonas putida, all separately and as bacterial co-culture (BCC) at a 1:1:1 ratio (v/v/v), employing physicochemical characterization and phytotoxicity analyses with Vigna radiata. The BCC demonstrated superior performance, achieving 96% degradation within 14 days, reducing the chemical oxygen demand of the PRE to 251 ± 27 mg L^-1 by the end of the treatment period, compared with A. calcoaceticus (85%), B. subtilis (90%), and P. putida (86%) over 21 days. At the completion of the 14-day cycle, the BCC decreased total dissolved solids to 173 ± 10 mg L^-1. Additionally, the BCC achieved 82% phenol removal within 14 days, surpassing the individual microbes requiring 21 days to reach equivalent remediation levels. Given the high initial phenolic load of the PRE (1382 ± 42 mg L^-1), these results demonstrate the strong capability of the BCC to effectively remove phenol and related phenolic compounds, leading to a substantial reduction in total phenolic content and enhanced effluent detoxification. Phytotoxicity assays confirmed that BCC treatment significantly reduced effluent toxicity, underscoring its potential as a rapid and effective method for PRE remediation. This study highlights the critical role of BCC in advancing sustainable solutions for industrial effluent treatment.

1,2,3-Trichloropropane (TCP), a highly mobile chemical byproduct, has severely exacerbated groundwater environment deterioration. Due to the lack of effective natural attenuation pathways, TCP typically exhibits a fate of persistent retention within aquifers. To address this challenge, instead of relying on limited specific strains, this study focused on exploring broad-spectrum co-metabolic substrates to enhance the degradation efficiency of a non-Dehalogenimonas synergistic consortium optimized through long-term directed domestication. Results indicated that the average degradation rate of the domesticated consortium increased to 19.06 μmol L^-1 d^-1, achieving complete removal within 3.5 days, thereby effectively altering the environmental persistence of TCP. Microbial community and metagenomic analyses revealed that this transformation process was driven by a synergistic alliance comprising Fusibacter, Desulfovibrio, Nitratidesulfovibrio, and Parabacteroides, realized through a coupled metabolic module of "hydrogen production, cofactor synthesis, and reductive dechlorination". Crucially, the consortium demonstrated exceptional broad-spectrum adaptability to various co-metabolic substrates, where sodium acetate and lactate significantly enhanced the degradation efficiency. This study confirms that utilizing suitable co-metabolic substrates can effectively activate the non-Dehalogenimonas consortium to regulate the migration and fate of pollutants in complex groundwater environments, offering an efficient bioremediation strategy to arrest groundwater contamination.

Ensuring the microbiological safety of dialysis water is a critical requirement in hemodialysis practice. Contamination with bacterial endotoxins poses a serious risk to patient health, particularly in regions with limited access to advanced purification systems. Developing affordable and effective local alternatives can significantly improve dialysis water quality and patient safety. This study aimed to develop and evaluate a locally fabricated synthetic membrane for the removal of bacterial endotoxins from dialysis water, providing a safe and cost-effective purification solution suitable for resource-limited healthcare environments. The fabricated membrane was tested in vitro using Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL) assay for quantitative endotoxin detection, contact angle measurement to assess surface wettability, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for morphological characterization. The performance of the membrane alone and in combination with ultrasound treatment, ultraviolet treatment, magnetic treatment, and ozone was compared to determine the most efficient treatment configuration. The results showed that combining membrane filtration with ozonation achieved the highest relative endotoxin reduction (~87%), outperforming the membrane-only system. The membrane exhibited a contact angle of 67°, indicating moderate hydrophilicity favorable for stable filtration performance. SEM analysis revealed a uniform, defect-free porous surface with pore sizes ranging from 0.5 to 2 μm, confirming effective endotoxin retention and structural integrity. This study demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of integrating locally produced synthetic membranes with ozonation as a practical, efficient, and sustainable approach to improving dialysis water quality. The proposed system offers a promising low-cost alternative for enhancing patient safety and can be adapted in healthcare centers with limited technical resources.

The issue of heavy metal contamination in groundwater has garnered increasing attention. To investigate the distribution characteristics of heavy metals, potential pollution sources, and associated human health risks in shallow groundwater within Long'an District, Anyang City, China, a total of 57 groundwater samples were collected for testing and analysis. Employing multivariate statistical analysis methods and Monte Carlo simulation, this study elucidated the sources and human health risk levels of seven heavy metals present in the groundwater: arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), manganese (Mn), iron (Fe), lead (Pb), and mercury (Hg). According to the HPI index-based pollution assessment results, moderately polluted sites accounted for 31.58%, with As, Hg, and Cd being the primary impact indicators. The detection rates for the remaining indicators-Cr, Mn, Fe, and Pb-were relatively low, indicating a lesser impact on water quality. The most prominent heavy metal contamination was observed in the fracture-pore water in clastic rocks in the southwestern region, with human industrial and agricultural activities identified as the key contributing factors. Principal component analysis identified Pb and Cd as the primary heavy metal sources (first principal component), representing industrial wastewater and exhaust emissions with strong representativeness. The second principal component (Fe and Mn) demonstrated poor representativeness, while the third component (Hg and As) constituted the primary indicators affecting groundwater quality in the study area, originating from natural geological sources. The current health risk level for shallow groundwater is generally acceptable. Monte Carlo simulation results indicate that noncarcinogenic risks are all within acceptable limits, whereas carcinogenic risk values present unacceptable levels. Among heavy metals, As poses the greatest health risk, followed by Cd. The primary exposure pathway is daily drinking water consumption. As and Cd are the heavy metal elements requiring the most attention in groundwater environmental protection efforts.