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Electrochemical elimination of Microcystis aeruginosa with boron-doped diamond anode in different electrolyte systems: chemical and biological mechanisms

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Abstract

The chemical and biological mechanisms of electrochemical elimination of Microcystis aeruginosa (M. aeruginosa) using boron-doped diamond (BDD) anode were comparatively explored in three different electrolytes (chloride, sulfate, and phosphate solutions). The most efficient elimination of M. aeruginosa was observed in chloride solution, which was attributed to the greatest total long-lived oxidants from the favorable formation of active chlorine. Moreover, the high permeability of active chlorine resulted in profound intracellular damages to chlorophyll-a, microcystin-LR (MC-LR), superoxide dismutase (SOD) enzyme, and DNA in the chloride system. The change of membrane permeability and degradation of the released MC-LR induced by active chlorine were further confirmed by the increase of extracellular MC-LR in the initial 5 min and a complete decay in the subsequent 15 min, while the change in morphology of algae cells was insignificant from SEM images. In sulfate and phosphate electrolytes, membrane damages were much more pronounced based on lipid peroxidation observation, although changes in cell morphology was found more significant in phosphate system. The higher concentrations of oxidants (·OH, O3, H2O2, S2O82−) generated in sulfate than in phosphate solution explained the greater efficiency of electrochemical elimination of M. aeruginosa in the sulfate electrolyte in terms of changes of cell density, OD680, chlorophyll-a, MC-LR, lipids, SOD enzyme, and DNA.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51721006) and Jiangsu Agriculture Science and Technology Innovation Fund (JASTIF No. CX(20)1011).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Agricultural Resources and Environment, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanjing, 210014, People’s Republic of China

    Yujiao Long & Hongmei Jin

  2. College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Water and Sediment Sciences, Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, People’s Republic of China

    Yujiao Long & Jinren Ni

  3. Agricultural Clean Watershed Research Group, Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, People’s Republic of China

    Hongna Li

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  1. Yujiao Long
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Contributions

Yujiao Long: Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data Curation, Writing—Original Draft, Visualization. Hongna Li: Writing—Review & Editing. Hongmei Jin: Writing—Review & Editing, Funding acquisition. Jinren Ni: Conceptualization, Writing—Review & Editing, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition.

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Correspondence to Jinren Ni.

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Long, Y., Li, H., Jin, H. et al. Electrochemical elimination of Microcystis aeruginosa with boron-doped diamond anode in different electrolyte systems: chemical and biological mechanisms. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 27677–27687 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-18254-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-18254-z

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