Effects of HRT and water temperature on nitrogen removal in autotrophic gravel filter.

Organic Carbon added to low ratio of carbon to nitrogen (C/N ratio) wastewater to enhance heterotrophic denitrification performance might lead to higher operating costs and secondary pollution. In this study, sodium thiosulfate (Na2S2O3) was applied as an electron donor for a gravel filter (one kind of constructed wetland) to investigate effects of hydraulic retention time (HRT) and water temperature on the nitrate removal efficiency. The results show that with an HRT of 12 h, the average total nitrogen (TN) removal efficiencies were 91% at 15-20 °C and 18% at 3-6 °C, respectively. When HRT increased to 24 h, the average TN removal increased accordingly to 41% at 3-6 °C, suggesting denitrification performance was improved by extended HRT at low water temperatures. Due to denitrification, 96% of added nitrate nitrogen (NO3(-)-N) was converted to nitrogen gas, with a mean flux of nitrous oxide (N2O) was 0.0268-0.1500 ug m(-2) h(-1), while 98.86% of thiosulfate was gradually converted to sulfate throughout the system. Thus, our results show that the sulfur driven autotrophic denitrification constructed wetland demonstrated an excellent removal efficiency of nitrate for wastewater treatment. The HRT and water temperature proved to be two influencing factors in this constructed wetland treatment system.

Comparative study of microbial community structure in integrated vertical-flow constructed wetlands for treatment of domestic and nitrified wastewaters.

Microbial processes play a vital important role in the removal of contaminants in constructed wetland (CW). However, the microbial physiology and community structure can be influenced by environmental conditions. In this study, four pilot-scale integrated vertical-flow constructed wetlands (IVCWs) were employed to treat domestic and nitrified wastewaters. The microbial properties, along with their response to wastewater quality characteristics and seasonal variation, were determined. The results showed higher Shannon-Weiner diversity (H) and evenness (E) index of fatty acids (FAs), and relative abundances of signature FAs in down-flow cells and in the systems fed with domestic wastewater (DW). The relative abundances of fungi and gram-negative and aerobic bacteria were greater in up-flow cells. The dominant anaerobic bacteria found in most cells might be accounted for the prevailing anaerobic environment within the wetland beds, which could mean that the system fed with nitrified wastewater (NW) should perform better in nitrogen removal. The redundancy analysis (RDA) showed that pollutant concentrations, especially organic matter, influence the FA compositions greatly, and the most significant difference of microbial community structures was detected in down-flow cells fed with DW and up-flow ones with NW. The branched FAs, which could be used to represent anaerobic bacteria, were observed in down-flow cells treating DW and had a significant positive correlation with chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration, probably suggesting the important role of anaerobic bacteria in organic matter degradation in the IVCWs. Seasonal variation, however, did not greatly influence the microbial community structure in the IVCWs.

Treatment performance and microorganism community structure of integrated vertical-flow constructed wetland plots for domestic wastewater.

In order to investigate the treatment performance and microorganism mechanism of IVCW for domestic wastewater in central of China, two parallel pilot-scale IVCW systems were built to evaluate purification efficiencies, microbial community structure and enzyme activities. The results showed that mean removal efficiencies were 81.03 % for COD, 51.66 % for total nitrogen (TN), 42.50 % for NH4 (+)-N, and 68.01 % for TP. Significant positive correlations between nitrate reductase activities and TN and NH4 (+)-N removal efficiencies, along with a significant correlation between substrate enzyme activity and operation time, were observed. Redundancy analysis demonstrated gram-negative bacteria were mainly responsible for urease and phosphatase activities, and also played a major role in dehydrogenase and nitrate reductase activities. Meanwhile, anaerobic bacteria, gram-negative bacteria, and saturated FA groups, gram-positive bacteria exhibited good correlations with the removal of COD (p=0.388), N (p=0.236), and TP (p=0.074), respectively. The IVCW system can be used to treat domestic wastewater effectively.