Enhancement of micropollutant biotransformation by adding manganese sand in constructed wetlands
Donglin Wang,
Quan Ma,
Hui Lin,
Jie Zhou,
Suxia Yuan,
Baiwen Ma,
Yaohui Bai,
Jiuhui Qu
Affiliations
Donglin Wang
Key Laboratory of Drinking Water Science and Technology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
Quan Ma
Key Laboratory of Drinking Water Science and Technology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China
Hui Lin
Key Laboratory of Drinking Water Science and Technology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
Jie Zhou
Key Laboratory of Drinking Water Science and Technology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China
Suxia Yuan
Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China
Baiwen Ma
Key Laboratory of Drinking Water Science and Technology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China; Corresponding author.
Yaohui Bai
Key Laboratory of Drinking Water Science and Technology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China; Corresponding author.
Jiuhui Qu
Key Laboratory of Drinking Water Science and Technology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China
Recent investigations have shown that the addition of manganese (Mn) sand to constructed wetlands (i.e., Mn-amended CWs) can improve the performance of organic micropollutants (MPs) removal. In addition to the direct oxidation and adsorption of Mn oxides, the indirect role of Mn oxides in MP biotransformation is crucial to the removal of MPs but has seldom been referred to. Herein, we constructed lab-scale CWs with or without the addition of natural Mn sand (∼35% Mn oxides) to decipher the influence of Mn oxides on the biotransformation of the six selected MPs which commonly existed in the wastewater. The experimental results showed that the addition of Mn sand to CWs can improve the removal of MPs (8.48% atrazine, 13.16% atenolol, and 6.27% sulfamethoxazole [pairwise Wilcoxon test p < 0.05]). Combining the detection of transformation products and metagenomic sequencing, we found that the enhanced removal of atrazine in the Mn-amended CWs was mainly due to the bioaugmented hydroxylation process. The enrichment of biotransformation-related genes and associated microbes of atenolol and sulfamethoxazole in Mn-amended CWs indicated that the addition of Mn sand to CWs can strengthen the biotransformation of MPs. Furthermore, we found that these MP-biodegrading microbes were widely present in the full-scale CWs. Overall, our research provides fundamental information and insights for further application of Mn-amended CWs in MP removal.
