Microbial Ecosystems in Water and Wastewater Treatment 2.0

A special issue of Microorganisms (ISSN 2076-2607). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Microbiology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2024) | Viewed by 1373

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Water Research Institute, National Research Council (IRSA-CNR), Monterotondo, 00015 Rome, Italy
Interests: wastewater treatment plant; water quality; biotechnology; environmental microbiology; metaproteomics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Water Research Institute, National Research Council (IRSA-CNR), Monterotondo, 00015 Rome, Italy
Interests: microbial ecology; water quality; water treatment; flow cytometry; omics techniques; multivariate statistics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue is a continuation of our previous Special Issue, “Microbial Ecosystems in Water and Wastewater Treatment (https://www.mdpi.com/si/117406)”.

Water treatment plants are intended to remove organic, inorganic, and microbiological contaminants from influent/source waters using physical, chemical, and biological processes. In the case of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), treated water can be directly dispatched in final acceptor water bodies for possible reuse when a very low environmental impact level is shown. In general, water treatment facilities produce water for a wide range of specific purposes, including industrial processes, irrigation, water-based recreation, and direct human consumption.

Notably, all water reclamation processes are fundamentally supported by the microbial consortia hosted within water and wastewater treatment plants. The composition and functionality of these metacommunities (including bacteria, archaea, fungi, protists, and metazoans) can differ depending on the characteristics of either the source water or the operative conditions of each plant.

Recently, the recurring detection of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs, including antibiotics and pesticides), microplastics, and many other water pollutants, has given impetus to the further exploring the microbe-driven degradation processes. This Special Issue offers a broad view of the microbiome, functional activity, and microbial relationships in the ecosystems found along treatment paths, with particular emphasis on community profiling, performed using advanced characterization techniques in different plant schemes and operative conditions.

Dr. Carlo Salerno
Dr. Stefano Amalfitano
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • microbial community
  • wastewater treatment plant
  • water reuse
  • biodegradation processes
  • water supply systems
  • water resource management

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 7665 KiB  
Article
Optimization of H2O2 Production in Biological Systems for Design of Bio-Fenton Reactors
by Peiguo Zhou, Liping Yang, Wenjing Yang, Jiaxin Hou and Ziqiao Liao
Microorganisms 2024, 12(7), 1488; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms12071488 - 20 Jul 2024
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Abstract
The treatment of antibiotic wastewater, which is known for its micro-toxicity, inhibition, and poor biochemistry, poses significant challenges, including complex processes, high energy demands, and secondary pollution. Bio-Fenton, a novel Fenton technology, enables the in situ production of H2O2 at [...] Read more.
The treatment of antibiotic wastewater, which is known for its micro-toxicity, inhibition, and poor biochemistry, poses significant challenges, including complex processes, high energy demands, and secondary pollution. Bio-Fenton, a novel Fenton technology, enables the in situ production of H2O2 at near-neutral pH, having low energy requirements and sustainable properties, and reduces the hazards of H2O2 transportation and storage. We preliminary self-designed a heterogeneous Bio-Fenton reactor. An aerobic SBBR system with pure algae, pure bacteria, and bacteria–algae symbiosis was first constructed to investigate the optimal process conditions through the effects of carbon source concentration, light duration, bamboo charcoal filling rate, and dissolved oxygen (DO) content on the H2O2 production and COD removal. Second, the reactor was constructed by adding iron-carrying catalysts to remove ROX and SDZ wastewater. The results demonstrated that the optimal operating parameters of aerobic SBBR were an influent carbon source concentration of 500 mg/L, a water temperature of 20 ± 2 °C, pH = 7.5, a dissolved oxygen content of 5 mg/L, a light–dark ratio of 12 h:12 h, a light intensity of 2500 Lux, an HRT of 10 h, and a bamboo charcoal filling rate of 33%. Given these conditions, the bacterial–algal system was comprehensively found to be the most suitable biosystem for this experiment. Ultimately, the dynamically coupled Bio-Fenton process succeeded in the preliminary removal of 41.32% and 42.22% of the ROX and SDZ from wastewater, respectively. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microbial Ecosystems in Water and Wastewater Treatment 2.0)
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14 pages, 8294 KiB  
Article
Comparing Sediment Bacterial Communities of Volcanic Lakes and Surrounding Rivers in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Northeastern China
by Jianying Chao, Jian Li, Jing Gao, Chengrong Bai, Xiangming Tang and Keqiang Shao
Microorganisms 2024, 12(7), 1435; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms12071435 - 15 Jul 2024
Viewed by 405
Abstract
Volcanic lakes originate from a volcanic crater or caldera, and were a crucial component of aquatic ecosystems. Sediment bacteria play an important role in the nutrient cycling of aquatic ecosystems; however, their patterns distribution in volcanic lakes and the surrounding river habitats are [...] Read more.
Volcanic lakes originate from a volcanic crater or caldera, and were a crucial component of aquatic ecosystems. Sediment bacteria play an important role in the nutrient cycling of aquatic ecosystems; however, their patterns distribution in volcanic lakes and the surrounding river habitats are unknown. In this study, we compare the sediment bacterial communities and their co-occurrence networks between these two habitats in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Northeastern China (the Arxan UNESCO Global Geopark), using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. The results revealed that there were significant variations in the physicochemical parameters of the sediment between these two habitats. The bacterial α-diversity, β-diversity, and community composition of the sediment also significantly differed between these two habitats. Network analysis showed that the co-occurrence patterns and keystone taxa in the sediment differed between these two habitats. The sediment bacterial communities in the river habitats were more stable than those in the lake habitats in the face of environmental change. Canonical correspondence analysis demonstrated that both physical (pH and MC) and nutrition-related factors (TN, TP, LOI, and TOC) were the most important environmental factors shaping the variations of bacterial community composition (BCC) in the sediment between these two habitats. This work could greatly improve our understanding of the sediment BCC of the sediment from aquatic ecosystems in the UNESCO Global Geopark. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microbial Ecosystems in Water and Wastewater Treatment 2.0)
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