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The Joint Anaerobic Denitrification Performance of Klebsiella sp. and Enterobacter hormaechei Using Two Carbon Substrates With and Without the Presence of Heavy Metals

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Abstract

Heavy metals such as Cu and Zn frequently co-occur with nitrate in the agriculturally impacted groundwaters. The varying denitrifying efficiency of carbon substrates is often linked to the rate of release of organic matter but rarely the components of the organic matter. Also, the impact of commonly occurring heavy metals in such denitrification systems remains unstudied. To address these questions, an Enterobacter hormaechei and Klebsiella sp. duad with two carbon substrates, corn cob (CC) and wood shavings (WS), was investigated for their nitrate removal performance and heavy metal tolerance in the presence of Cu and Zn. Results show that the Enterobacter hormaechei and Klebsiella sp. duad was up to 50 times more tolerant to Cu and up to 5 times more tolerant to Zn than most recently studied bacterial strains. CC was better suited for nitrate removal than WS, indicated by a removal efficiency of 99% and 25% respectively. Parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) of the substrate leachate indicated that denitrification resulted in a transition from a protein-like to a humic-like DOM suggesting that the protein-like components are responsible for denitrification. Furthermore, the CC protein component is more biodegradable than the WS protein, implying that the CC is substantially more efficient. Cu had a more pronounced negative impact on denitrification performance than Zn, with the threshold concentrations being > 20 mg/L and 100 mg/L for Cu and Zn respectively. Insights gained through this study can help to better evaluate and improve the nitrate removal efficiency by the biological denitrification process.

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Acknowledgements

We appreciate the financial support from the Natural Science Foundation of China (grants: 42177406, 41672248) and Liaoning BaiQianWan Talents Program.

Funding

This research was funded by the Natural Science Foundation of China (42177406, 41672248) and Liaoning BaiQianWan Talents Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Lab of Eco-Restoration of Regional Contaminated Environment (Shenyang University), Ministry of Education, Shenyang, 110044, China

    George Kwame Amoako-Nimako, Fangmin Chen, Jingjing Fu, Dan Yu & Xinyao Yang

  2. Liaoning Provincial Key Lab of Urban Integrated Pest Management and Ecological Security, Shenyang University, Shenyang, 110044, China

    Fangmin Chen

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  1. George Kwame Amoako-Nimako
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Contributions

George Kwame Amoako-Nimako: conceptualization, formal analysis, investigation, methodology, project administration, software, validation, visualization, writing—original draft, writing—reviewing and editing. Xinyao Yang: funding acquisition, project administration, supervision, resources, conceptualization, project administration, writing—reviewing and editing. Jingjing Fu: methodology, writing—reviewing and editing. Dan Yu: methodology, writing—reviewing and editing. Fangmin Chen: writing—reviewing and editing.

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Correspondence to Xinyao Yang.

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Highlights

• Klebsiella sp. and Enterobacter hormaechei working together displayed significantly higher Cu and Zn tolerance than most recently studied strains.

• CC was more efficient as a carbon source than WS, having more biodegradable protein-like components.

• Cu had a more adverse impact than Zn, leading to NO2− accumulation.

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Amoako-Nimako, G.K., Chen, F., Fu, J. et al. The Joint Anaerobic Denitrification Performance of Klebsiella sp. and Enterobacter hormaechei Using Two Carbon Substrates With and Without the Presence of Heavy Metals. Water Air Soil Pollut 233, 531 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-022-05991-1

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