Systematic and long-term technical validity of toxicity determination and early warning of heavy metal pollution based on an automatic water-toxicity-determination-system

Highlights

● Establish an automatic water toxicity determination system with a high technical maturity.

● Provide a systematic and basic database of heavy metal toxicity determination with EAB.

● More than two-month surface water quality monitoring with EAB was realized.

● Testify the feasibility of the on-site early warning of heavy metal pollution with EAB.

Abstract

Water toxicity determination with electrochemically active bacteria (EAB) shows promise for providing early warnings for heavy metal pollution in water. However, thus far, only idealized tests with a few types of heavy metals have been conducted. In this study, an automatic water-toxicity-determination system with high technical maturity was established, and the toxicological properties of common heavy metals were systematically assessed. The results demonstrated that the common heavy metals linearly inhibited EAB currents in the range of 0.1 mg/L to 0.5 mg/L. The toxicity ranking of the tested heavy metals was Pb²⁺ > Tl³⁺ > Cu²⁺ > Cd²⁺ > Zn²⁺ > Ni²⁺ > Hg²⁺ > As³⁺. The toxicity interaction mainly exhibited an antagonistic effect in binary heavy metal mixtures. The system can accurately determine surface water toxicity and rapidly monitor heavy metal pollution, with good repeatability and a long lifetime. Overall, this study demonstrates that EAB are capable of long-term (> 60 d) surface water quality monitoring and on-site early warning of heavy metal pollution.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Biological early warning system / Electrochemically active bacteria / Water toxicity determination / Biosensor / Heavy metal pollution / Early warning

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by grants from the Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province (No. 2022B0303040001).

Conflict of Interests

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-024-1856-8 and is accessible for authorized users.

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