Nitrifiers activity and community characteristics under stress conditions in partial nitrification systems treating ammonium-rich wastewater

Long-term exposure of nitrifiers to high concentrations of free ammonia(FA) and free nitrous acid(FNA) may affect nitrifiers activity and nitrous oxide(N_2O) emission.Two sequencing batch reactors(SBRs) were operated at influent ammonium nitrogen(NH_4-N) concentrations of 800 mg/L(SBRH) and 335 mg/L(SBRL),respectively.The NH_4-N removal rates in SBRHand SBRLwere around 2.4 and 1.0 g/L/day with the nitritation efficiencies of 99.3% and 95.7%,respectively.In the simulated SBR cycle,the N_2O emission factors were 1.61% in SBRH and 2.30% in SBRL.N_2O emission was affected slightly by FA with the emission factor of0.22%–0.65%,while N_2O emission increased with increasing FNA concentrations with the emission factor of 0.22%–0.96%.The dominant ammonia oxidizing bacteria(AOB) were Nitrosomonas spp.in both reactors,and their relative proportions were 38.89% in SBRHand13.36% in SBRL.Within the AOB genus,a species(i.e.,operational taxonomic unit [OTU] 76) that was phylogenetically identical to Nitrosomonas europaea accounted for 99.07% and 82.04% in SBRHand SBRL,respectively.Additionally,OTU 215,which was related to Nitrosomonas stercoris,accounted for 16.77% of the AOB in SBRL.     

Investigation of saponification for determination of polychlorinated biphenyls in marine sediments

The effects of saponification conditions (temperature and water content of saponifying solution) on the determination of chlorinated biphenyls (CBs) in marine sediments were investigated. Although highly chlorinated biphenyls (nona- to deca-CBs) decomposed during high-temperature saponification, the degree of degradation was reduced by adding water to the ethanolic potassium hydroxide saponifying solution. Room-temperature saponification yielded quantitative recovery of highly chlorinated biphenyl surrogates but low extraction efficiencies of lightly chlorinated biphenyls (mono- to di-CBs). The same samples were analyzed by other extraction techniques, for example, pressurized liquid extraction, and analytical results were compared. The mono- and di-CB concentrations were correlated with the extraction temperatures of various extraction techniques. In particular, the concentrations of some CB congeners (CB11, CB14) were higher with saponification. The low degree of degradation of highly chlorinated biphenyls and the high recovery of lightly chlorinated biphenyls were compatible when room-temperature and high-temperature saponification were combined. Except for the anomalies of CB11 and CB14, the combined method gave satisfactory results for analysis of PCBs.