Chronic effects of cerium dioxide nanoparticles on biological nitrogen removal and nitrous oxide emission: Insight into impact mechanism and performance recovery potential

Jinyu Ye, Huan Gao, Carlos Domingo-Félez, Junkang Wu, Manjun Zhan, Ran Yu*, Barth F. Smets

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Abstract

The influence of cerium dioxide nanoparticles (CeO2 NPs) on biological nitrogen removal and associated nitrous oxide (N2O) emission has seldom been addressed yet. Herein, the chronic effect of CeO2 NPs on the nitrogen transformation processes during wastewater treatment and the impacted system's self-recovery potential after CeO2 NP stress removal were investigated. CeO2 NP of 10-50 mg/L induced significant declines of the ammonia nitrogen (NH4+-N) and the total nitrogen removal efficiencies, but triggered the nitrite accumulation and the N2O emission. The N2O reductase (NOS) activity was negatively correlated with the N2O emission level, and the inhibition of NOS activity under CeO2 NP stress was probably due to the depressions of the sludge denitrifiers' metabolic activities. The NH4+-N removal efficiency was successfully regained after the recovery period although the N2O emission level was still higher than the pre-exposure period, which was probably due to the residual CeO2 NPs inside the activated sludge.
Original languageEnglish
Article number126966
JournalBioresource Technology
Volume351
Number of pages9
ISSN0960-8524
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Keywords

  • CeO2 nanoparticle
  • Nitrification/denitrification
  • Nitrous oxide
  • Metabolic activity
  • Recovery potential

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