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Bioaugmentation in a pilot-scale constructed wetland to treat domestic wastewater in summer and autumn

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Abstract

In order to determine whether bioaugmentation is an effective technique in wetlands before the plants were harvested, the nitrogen (N) removal from a constructed wetland (CW) planted with Phragmites was evaluated after inoculating with Paenibacillus sp. XP1 in Northern China. The experiment was loaded with secondary effluent of rural domestic wastewater (RDW) using the batch-loaded method for over a 17-day period in summer and autumn. Chemical oxygen demand (CODcr), ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N), and total nitrogen (TN) decreased significantly in the CW with Phragmites inoculated with Paenibacillus sp. XP1. Four days after treatments were set up, the removal efficiencies were found to be 76.2 % for CODcr, 83 % for NH3-N, and 63.8 % for TN in summer and 69.5 % for CODcr, 76.9 % for NH3-N, and 55.6 % for TN in autumn, which were higher than the control group without inoculation during the entire 17-day experiment. The inoculated bacteria did not have a noticeable effect on total phosphorus (TP) removal in autumn. However, bioaugmentation still keep a low P concentration in the whole CW. First-order kinetic model represented well the CODcr, TN, and TP decay in CWs with bioaugmentation, resulting in very good coefficients of determination, which ranged from 0.97 to 0.99. It indicated that bioaugmentation would be an effective treatment for pollutant removal from RDW in the CWs.

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Abbreviations

CW:

Constructed wetland

RCW:

Constructed wetland with Phragmites without bacterial inoculation

RCW-XP1:

Constructed wetland with Phragmites inoculated with Paenibacillus sp. XP1 inoculation

RDW:

Rural domestic wastewater

HRT:

Hydraulic retention time

DO:

Dissolved oxygen

COD:

Chemical oxygen demand

N:

Nitrogen

P:

Phosphorus

NH3-N:

Ammonia-N

NO2 −-N:

Nitrite

NO3 −-N:

Nitrate

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Acknowledgments

This research was financially supported by the Nature Science Foundation of China (51378300), Nature Science Foundation of China (50978156), Nature Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2009BZ007), and Technology Development Projects of Shandong Province (2009GG2GC06002). The authors thank Tim A. Sheedy for revising the English in the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shandong University, 250061, Jinan, Shandong Province, People’s Republic of China

    Haiyan Pei, Yuanyuan Shao, Wenrong Hu, Panpan Meng, Zheng Li, Yang Chen & Guangxiang Ma

  2. Shandong Provincial Engineering Centre on Environmental Science and Technology, 250061, Jinan, Shandong Province, People’s Republic of China

    Haiyan Pei & Wenrong Hu

  3. Department of Forest Sciences, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, 3041-2424 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada

    Yuanyuan Shao & Christopher Peter Chanway

  4. Faculty of Land and Food Systems, University of British Columbia, 248-2357 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada

    Christopher Peter Chanway

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  1. Haiyan Pei
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  2. Yuanyuan Shao
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  3. Christopher Peter Chanway
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  4. Wenrong Hu
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  7. Yang Chen
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  8. Guangxiang Ma
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Correspondence to Haiyan Pei.

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Pei, H., Shao, Y., Chanway, C.P. et al. Bioaugmentation in a pilot-scale constructed wetland to treat domestic wastewater in summer and autumn. Environ Sci Pollut Res 23, 7776–7785 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-015-5834-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-015-5834-3

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