Effect of polyethylene microplastics on activated sludge process - Accumulation in the sludge and influence on the process and on biomass characteristics
Autor: | J.L. Alonso, Inmaculada Amorós, José-Antonio Mendoza-Roca, S. Castelluccio, Julián Fernández-Navarro, C. Bretas Alvim, M.A Bes-Piá, E. Ferrer-Polonio |
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Rok vydání: | 2021 |
Předmět: |
congenital
hereditary and neonatal diseases and abnormalities Microplastics Environmental Engineering Biosolids General Chemical Engineering 0211 other engineering and technologies Sewage Sequencing batch reactor 02 engineering and technology 010501 environmental sciences 01 natural sciences INGENIERIA QUIMICA Denitrifying bacteria Environmental Chemistry skin and connective tissue diseases Safety Risk Reliability and Quality SBR 0105 earth and related environmental sciences 021110 strategic defence & security studies Chemistry business.industry Microplastic nutritional and metabolic diseases Pulp and paper industry Activated sludge Wastewater Polyethylene Sewage treatment business |
Zdroj: | Process Safety and Environmental Protection. 148:536-547 |
ISSN: | 0957-5820 2018-0969 |
DOI: | 10.1016/j.psep.2020.10.014 |
Popis: | [EN] According to previous research, it has been proved that wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) can retain more than 90 % of the MPs contained in wastewater. However, a significant fraction of the MPs removed in WWTPs is retained in the sludge floc and this may lead to an environmental issue since biosolids can be used as fertilizers. The purpose of this research was to evaluate how the presence of polyethylene (PE) could interfere with the activated sludge performance. For this, a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) was continuously fed during 93 days with synthetic sewage and PE microbeads. It was observed that 98 +/- 2% of the total amount of MPs that entered SBR was accumulated in the activated sludge. Despite the high accumulation of MPs in the sludge, the depuration performance of the reactor was not compromised. However, the presence of MPs decreased the richness (Chao1) and abundance-based coverage estimators (ACE) and diversity (Shannon) of the bacterial community on day 93. Based on the analysis of the diversity indices and the relative abundances of microbial taxa, it was concluded that MPs had selective effects on activated sludge microbial community. However, MPs did not affect the abundance of nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria in the sludge. Authors thank the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities for the financial support (Reference of the project: RTI2018-096916-B-I00) |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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