Impacts of electrochemical disinfection on the viability and structure of the microbiome in secondary effluent water

Highlights

● ECD decreased cell count by five orders of magnitude after 150 s of disinfection.

● Biodiversity was suppressed, but a higher level of evenness & stability is retained.

● Pathogenic and stress-tolerant taxa increased while biofilm-forming taxa decreased.

● Co-occurrence networks show ECD effectively destabilized the microbiome.

● Membrane synthesis and organic compound degrading functions are enriched after ECD.

Abstract

Electrochemical disinfection (ECD) is a promising disinfection technique for wastewater reclamation; however, the impacts of ECD on the microbiome in secondary effluent wastewater remain unknown. In this study, Propidium monoazide-qPCR (PMA-qPCR) and the plate count method were used to evaluate the inactivation performance, and the PMA-16S rRNA gene sequences of living cells were targeted to study the microbiome. A discrepancy was found between PMA-qPCR and the plate count method in the evaluation of cell count, with increases of 1.5 to 2.2 orders of magnitude in the disinfection rate after 150 s of disinfection. However, the cell count recovered and occasionally exceeded original levels within 3 d after disinfection. Biodiversity was suppressed after ECD, but the microbiome after 150 s disinfection retained a higher level of evenness and stability in the community with a median Shannon index (> 3.7). Pathogenic bacteria remained high in relative abundance even after 150 s of 25 V disinfection, but the biofilm-forming population was effectively suppressed by ECD. The co-occurrence network revealed a centralized and fragile network as disinfection persisted, demonstrating the destabilizing effects of ECD on the microbiome. Functional pathways for cell membrane synthesis and organic compound degradation were enriched after ECD. The reaction of the microbiome after ECD was similar to other disinfection techniques in terms of community structure.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Electrochemical disinfection / Secondary effluent / Microbiome

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51378286) and the State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Microorganism Application and Risk Control (China).

Data Availability

Sequencing data used in this manuscript are uploaded to the SRA archive of NCBI, and they can be accessed through accession number PRJNA780651.

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