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Effect mechanism of micron-scale zero-valent iron enhanced pyrite-driven denitrification biofilter for nitrogen and phosphorus removal

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Abstract

This study aims to explore the effect mechanism of micron-scale zero-valent iron (mZVI) to improve nitrogen and phosphorus removal in a pyrite (FeS2)-driven denitrification biofilter (DNBF) for the secondary effluent treatment. Two similar DNBFs (DNBF-A with FeS2 as fillers and DNBF-B with the mixture mZVI and FeS2 as carrier) were developed. The results showed that NO3−–N, total nitrogen (TN) and PO43−–P removal efficiencies were up to 91.64%, 67.44% and 80.26% in DNBF-B, which were obviously higher than those of DNBF-A (with NO3−–N, TN and PO43−–P removal efficiencies of 38.39%, 44.89% and 53.02%, respectively). Kinetic analysis of both PO43−–P and NO3−–N showed an increase in the rate constant (K) for DNBF-B compared to DNBF-A. The addition of mZVI not only improved the electron transport system activity (ETSA), but also achieved system Fe(II)/Fe(III) redox cycle in DNBF-B. In addition, the high-throughput sequencing analysis indicated that the addition of mZVI could obviously stimulate the enrichment of functional bacteria, such as Thiobacillus (11.99%), Mesotoga (7.50%), JGI-0000079D21 (6.37%), norank_f__Bacteroidetes_vadinHA17 (6.19%), Aquimonas (5.93%) and Arenimonas (3.97%). These genus played the important role in nitrogen and phosphorus removal in DNBF-B. Addition mZVI in the FeS2-driven denitrification biofilter is highly promising for TN and TP removal during secondary effluent treatment.

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All data included in this study are available upon request by contact with the corresponding author.

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Funding

This work was funded by National Natural Science Founda-tion of China (Grant No. 42377083); Open Project Program of Engineering Research Center of Groundwater Pollution Control and Remediation, Ministry of Education (No. GW202211).

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  1. School of Resources and Environment, Chengdu University of Information Technology, Chengdu, 610225, China

    Xin Liu, Xin Xin, Wenyu Yang & Xinyu Zhang

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Contributions

XL: methodology, investigation, data curation, data analysis, writing-original draft. XX: conceptualization, writing-review and editing, data curation, funding acquisition. WY: writing—review and editing, validation, data curation. XZ: investigation, data curation.

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Correspondence to Xin Xin.

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Liu, X., Xin, X., Yang, W. et al. Effect mechanism of micron-scale zero-valent iron enhanced pyrite-driven denitrification biofilter for nitrogen and phosphorus removal. Bioprocess Biosyst Eng 46, 1847–1860 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-023-02941-x

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