Enhanced 4-chlorophenol biodegradation by integrating Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles into an anaerobic reactor: Long-term performance and underlying mechanism

Highlights

• 4-chlorophenol biodegradation could be enhanced in Fe₂O₃ coupled anaerobic system.

• Metabolic activity and electron transport could be improved by Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles.

• Functional microbial communities could be enriched in coupled anaerobic system.

• Possible synergistic mechanism involved in enhanced dechlorination was proposed.

Abstract

Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles have been reported to enhance the dechlorination performance of anaerobic systems, but the underlying mechanism has not been clarified. This study evaluated the technical feasibility, system stability, microbial biodiversity and the underlying mechanism involved in a Fe₂O₃ nanoparticle-coupled anaerobic system treating 4-chlorophenol (4-CP) wastewater. The results demonstrated that the 4-CP and total organic carbon (TOC) removal efficiencies in the Fe₂O₃-coupled up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) were always higher than 97% and 90% during long-term operation, verifying the long-term stability of the Fe₂O₃-coupled UASB. The 4-CP and TOC removal efficiencies in the coupled UASB increased by 42.9±0.4% and 27.5±0.7% compared to the control UASB system. Adding Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles promoted the enrichment of species involved in dechlorination, fermentation, electron transfer and acetoclastic methanogenesis, and significantly enhanced the extracellular electron transfer ability, electron transport activity and conductivity of anaerobic sludge, leading to enhanced 4-CP biodegradation performance. A possible synergistic mechanism involved in enhanced anaerobic 4-CP biodegradation by Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles was proposed.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Dechlorination / Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles / Electron transfer / Microbial community

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Acknowledgements

This research is financed by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. BK20170038) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51778294 and 51708295).

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-022-1519-6 and is accessible for authorized users.

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