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Nitrate reduction coupled with microbial oxidation of sulfide in river sediment

  • SEDIMENTS, SEC 2 • PHYSICAL AND BIOGEOCHEMICAL PROCESSES • RESEARCH ARTICLE
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Abstract

Purpose

Nitrate (NO −3 ) is often considered to be removed mainly through microbial respiratory denitrification coupled with carbon oxidation. Alternatively, NO −3 may be reduced by chemolithoautotrophic bacteria using sulfide as an electron donor. The aim of this study was to quantify the NO −3 reduction process with sulfide oxidation under different NO −3 input concentrations in river sediment.

Materials and methods

Under NO −3 input concentrations of 0.2 to 30 mM, flow-through reactors filled with river sediment from the Pearl River, China, were used to measure the processes of potential NO −3 reduction and sulfate (SO 2−4 ) production. Molecular biology analyses were conducted to study the microbial mechanisms involved.

Results and discussion

Simultaneous NO3 − removal and SO4 2− production were observed with the different NO −3 concentrations in the sediment samples collected at different depths. Potentially, NO −3 removal reached 72 to 91 % and SO 2−4 production rates ranged from 0.196 to 0.903 mM h−1. The potential NO −3 removal rates were linearly correlated to the NO −3 input concentrations. While the SO 2−4 production process became stable, the NO −3 reduction process was still a first-order reaction within the range of NO −3 input concentrations. With low NO −3 input concentrations, the NO −3 removal was mainly through the pathway of dissimilatory NO −3 reduction to NH +4 , while with higher NO −3 concentrations the NO −3 removal was through the denitrification pathway.

Conclusions

While most of NO −3 in the sediment was reduced by denitrifying heterotrophs, sulfide-driven NO −3 reduction accounted for up to 26 % of the total NO −3 removal under lower NO −3 concentrations. The vertical distributions of NO −3 reduction and SO 2−4 production processes were different because of the variable bacterial communities with depth.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partly supported by grants from the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation (Nos. 51039007 and 51179212) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution Control and Remediation Technology, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510275, People’s Republic of China

    Xunan Yang, Shan Huang, Qunhe Wu & Renduo Zhang

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  1. Xunan Yang
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  2. Shan Huang
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  3. Qunhe Wu
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Correspondence to Qunhe Wu or Renduo Zhang.

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Yang, X., Huang, S., Wu, Q. et al. Nitrate reduction coupled with microbial oxidation of sulfide in river sediment. J Soils Sediments 12, 1435–1444 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-012-0542-9

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