Abstract
Sulfate wastewater has a wide range of sources and greatly harms water, soil, and plants. Iron-carbon microelectrolysis (IC-ME) is a potentially sustainable strategy to improve the treatment of sulfate (SO42−) wastewater by sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB). In this study, an iron-carbon mixed micro-electrolysis bioreactor (R1), iron-carbon layered bioreactor (R2), activated carbon bioreactor (R3), and scrap iron filing bioreactor (R4) were constructed by up-flow column experimental device. The performance and mechanism of removing high-concentration sulfate wastewater under different sulfate concentrations, hydraulic retention times (HRT), and chemical oxygen demand (COD)/SO42− were discussed. The results show that the iron-carbon microelectrolysis-enhanced SRB technology can remove high-concentration sulfate wastewater, and the system can still operate normally at low pH. In the high hydraulic loading stage (HRT = 12 h, COD/SO42− = 1.4), the SO42− removal rate of the R1 reactor reached 98.08%, and the ORP value was stable between − 350 and − 450 mV, providing a good ORP environment for SRB. When HRT = 12 h and influent COD/SO42− = 1.4, the R1 reactor sulfate removal rate reached 96.7%. When the influent COD/SO42− = 0.7, the sulfate removal rate was 52.9%, higher than the control group. Biological community analysis showed that the abundance of SRB in the R1 reactor was higher than that in the other three groups, indicating that the IC-ME bioreactor could promote the enrichment of SRB and improve its population competitive advantage. It can be seen that the synergistic effect between IC-ME and biology plays a vital role in the treatment of high-concentration sulfate wastewater and improves the biodegradability of sulfate. It is a promising process for treating high-concentration sulfate wastewater.
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The datasets used or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Funding
The project is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41672247), Liaoning Province’s “Program for Promoting Liaoning Talents” (XLYC1807159), the Discipline Innovation Team of Liaoning Technical University (LNTU20TD-21), and Liaoning Provincial Department of Education Project (LJKZ0324).
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Hanzhe Li and Junzhen Di conceived and designed the experiments. Hanzhe Li and Yanrong Dong performed the experiments. Hanzhe Li and Sihang Bao analyzed the data. Hanzhe Li and Saiou Fu wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Li, H., Di, J., Dong, Y. et al. Enhanced reduction of sulfate by iron-carbon microelectrolysis: interaction mechanism between microelectrolysis and microorganisms. Environ Sci Pollut Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-32993-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-32993-9