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Supplementary Tables A-F from Rapid Identification of UCA1 as a Very Sensitive and Specific Unique Marker for Human Bladder Carcinoma

Purpose: The most common genitourinary malignancy in China is bladder transitional cell carcinoma (TCC). Early diagnosis of new and recurrent bladder cancers, followed by timely treatment, will help decrease mortality. There are currently no satisfactory markers for bladder cancer available in clinics. Better diagnostic methods are highly demanded.Experimental Design: In this research, we have used comprehensive expressed sequence tag analysis, serial analysis of gene expression, and microarray analysis and quickly discovered a candidate marker, urothelial carcinoma associated 1 (UCA1). The UCA1 gene was characterized and its performance as a urine marker was analyzed by reverse transcription-PCR with urine sediments. A total of 212 individuals were included in this study, 94 having bladder cancers, 33 ureter/pelvic cancers, and 85 normal and other urinary tract disease controls.Results:UCA1 was identified as a novel noncoding RNA gene dramatically up-regulated in TCC and it is the most TCC-specific gene yet identified. The full-length cDNA was 1,439 bp, and sequence analysis showed that it belonged to the human endogenous retrovirus H family. Clinical tests showed that UCA1 assay was highly specific (91.8%, 78 of 85) and very sensitive (80.9%, 76 of 94) in the diagnosis of bladder cancer and was especially valuable for superficial G2-G3 patients (sensitivity 91.1%, 41 of 45). It showed excellent differential diagnostic performance in various urinary tract diseases without TCC.Conclusions: UCA1 is a very sensitive and specific unique marker for bladder cancer. It could have important implications in postoperative noninvasive follow-up. This research also highlights a shortcut to new cancer diagnostic assays through integration of in silico isolation methods with translational clinical tests based on RNA detection protocols.

Two new prenylated flavanonols, named as fortunones A (1) and B (2), and one new geranylated flavanone, named as fortunones C (3), were isolated from the fruits of Paulownia fortunei (Seem.) Hemsl. Their structures were elucidated distinctly according to their UV, MS, NMR, and CD spectra. Structural modifications on prenyl and geranyl groups in these isolated compounds were uncommon for Paulownia flavanones. Only compounds 1 and 3 showed weak antioxidant effect on human umbilical vein endothelial cells injury induced by H2O2.

The effect of particle morphology on denitrification performance in element sulfur-based denitrification (ESDeN) packed-bed process is a gap. In this study, three different types of commercial sulfur particles were selected to build the ESDeN reactors. The results showed the reactors filled with rougher sulfur particles took shorter time to reach stable denitrification performance in the start-up stage. The reactors filled with cap-shape sulfur particles received the maximum nitrate removal rate of 849.49 ± 79.29 g N m

Constructed wetlands (CWs) integrated with sulfur autotrophic denitrification to stimulate high-rate nitrogen removal from carbon-limited wastewater holds particular application prospect due to no excessive carbon source addition, high efficiency, and good stability. In this study, we conducted elemental sulfur-based constructed wetland (SCW) and traditional constructed wetland (CW) under different C/N (2, 1, and 0.5) to explore the feasibility and mechanisms for nitrogen removal from low C/N wastewater. Compared with CW, SCW was demonstrated more robust in nitrogen removal in the case of low C/N influent. When the influent C/N control was at 0.5, SCW observed total nitrogen (TN) and nitrate removal efficiency of 69.36 ± 3.96% and 81.71 ± 3.96%, with the corresponding removal rate of 1.18 ± 0.66 and 1.70 ± 0.92 g-N·m

Electrostimulated hydrolysis acidification (eHA) has been used as an efficient biological pre-treatment of refractory industrial wastewater. However, the effects of electrostimulation on the function and assembly of planktonic anaerobic sludge microbial communities are poorly understood. Using 16S rRNA gene and metagenomic sequencing, we investigated planktonic sludge microbial community structure, composition, function, assembly, and microbial interactions in response to electrostimulation. Compared with a conventional hydrolysis acidification (HA) reactor, the planktonic sludge microbial communities selected by electrostimulation promoted biotransformation of the azo dye Alizarin Yellow R. The taxonomic and functional structure and composition were significantly shifted upon electrostimulation with azo dyes degraders (e.g. Acinetobacter and Dechloromonas) and electroactive bacteria (e.g. Pseudomonas) being enriched. More microbial interactions between fermenters and decolorizing and electroactive bacteria, as well as fewer interactions between different fermenters evolved in the eHA microbial communities. Moreover, the decolorizing bacteria were linked to the higher abundance of genes encoding for azo- and nitro-reductases and redox mediator (e.g. ubiquinone) biosynthesis involved in the transformation of azo dye. Microbial community assembly was more driven by deterministic processes upon electrostimulation. This study offers new insights into the effects of electrostimulation on planktonic sludge microbial community function and assembly, and provides a promising strategy for the manipulation of anaerobic sludge microbiomes in HA engineering systems.

Graphene oxide(GO) membrane has the potential to become the next generation of water purification membrane, which could help to ease water crisis in many counties. However, organic membrane fouling is still difficult to avoid. In this study, we used a trace of ·OH to mitigate fouling by tuning surface functional groups of GO membrane and altering fouling layer. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis indicated that ·OH changed the epoxide-dominated GO surface to a hydroxyl-dominated surface. The adhesion force between the GO membrane and organic microspheres decreased from 0.37 ± 0.16 mN/m to 0.08 ± 0.14 mN/m after functionalization by ·OH. Quantum mechanical simulations showed that the interaction energy of the hydroxyl-dominated GO surface with a modified alginic acid monomer was 4.07 eV, which was lower than that (5.68 eV) between the epoxide-dominated GO surface and the modified alginic acid monomer. A thicker water molecule layer formed on the hydroxyl-dominated GO surface than on the epoxide-dominated GO surface through hydrogen bonding, thus repelling organic foulants. Combined with the oxidative effect of ·OH, the current method achieved the nearly complete prevention of membrane fouling. This result could provide us a new perspective for the fouling-free membrane-based water purification process.

Qian et al. shows that ILC2s can be generated from not only thymic multipotent progenitors but also committed T cell precursors. These processes are greatly suppressed by E protein transcription factors. Thymic ILC2s show functional differences from those made elsewhere., Current models propose that group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s) are generated in the bone marrow. Here, we demonstrate that subsets of these cells can differentiate from multipotent progenitors and committed T cell precursors in the thymus, both in vivo and in vitro. These thymic ILC2s exit the thymus, circulate in the blood, and home to peripheral tissues. Ablation of E protein transcription factors greatly promotes the ILC fate while impairing B and T cell development. Consistently, a transcriptional network centered on the ZBTB16 transcription factor and IL-4 signaling pathway is highly up-regulated due to E protein deficiency. Our results show that ILC2 can still arise from what are normally considered to be committed T cell precursors, and that this alternative cell fate is restrained by high levels of E protein activity in these cells. Thymus-derived lung ILC2s of E protein–deficient mice show different transcriptomes, proliferative properties, and cytokine responses from wild-type counterparts, suggesting potentially distinct functions., Graphical Abstract

Nitrate is one of the most common pollutants in the water environment. A key factor for the effective control and removal of nitrate is the ability to accurately determine the nitrate concentration in groundwater and the secondary effluent of wastewater treatment plants. Here, a bioelectrochemical method for real-time detection of the nitrate was developed. In this work, a kinetic model was developed to describe the correlation between the nitrate concentration and the current. Standard addition experiments showed the relative error between indicator predictions and ion chromatographic values ranged from 3.14% to 9.74%. The monitoring results of secondary effluent showed that the system could give a good response at different nitrate concentrations. The average error of not >10.85% between the indicator predictions and ion chromatographic values was demonstrated. This study offers a new method for the development of sustainable bioelectrochemical system (BES)-based technology for the real-time detection of nitrate in groundwater and the secondary effluent.

Constructed wetlands (CWs) integrated with the bioelectrochemical system (BES-CW) to stimulate bio-refractory compounds removal holds particular promise, owing to its inherent greater scale and well-recognized environmentally benign wastewater advanced purification technology. However, the knowledge regarding the feasibility and removal mechanisms, particularly the potential negative effects of biorefractory compounds on nitrogen removal performance for the CWs is far insufficient. This study performed a critical assessment by using BES-CW (ECW) and conventional CW (CW) to investigate the effects of p-Chloronitrobenzene (pCNB) on nitrogen transformations in CWs. The results showed that low concentration (1 mg·L

Environmental pollution is increasingly becoming an issue of significant public interest in many developing countries and the international community at large. The growing socioeconomic developments as witnessed globally in recent times due to rapid urbanization and industrialization have led to the overexploitation of natural resources, while inadvertently resulted in severe environmental problems. In this chapter, we attempted to present the effect of environmental pollution to our physical environment as well as its socioeconomic impacts. Specifically, we focused more on the major types of pollution, which are widely recognized as international public health problems, namely, land/soil, water, air, noise, and plastic/microplastic pollution, enumerating their effects and how they have acted as an obstruction to the social and economic progress by placing tremendous pressure on resources and environment. Possible ways of ensuring environmental quality and sustainability leading to improved public health and well-being alongside with different kinds of intervention were proposed.

Sulfur autotrophic denitrification (SAD) process, as an alternative to heterotrophic denitrification (HD) filter, receives growing interest in polishing the effluent from secondary sewage treatment. Although individual studies have indicated several advantages of SAD over HD, rare study has compared these two systems under identical condition and by using real secondary effluent. In this study, two small pilot scale filters (SAD and HD) were designed with identical configuration and operated parallelly by feeding the real secondary effluent from a WWTP. The results showed SAD filter can be started up without the addition of soluble electron donor, although the time (14 days) was about 3 times longer than that of HD filter. The nitrate removal rate of SAD filter at HRT of 1.4 h was measured as 0.268 ± 0.047 kg N/(m3∙d). Similar value was observed in HD filter with supplementing 90 mg/L COD. The COD concentration of effluent always kept lower than that of influent in SAD filter but not in HD filter. In addition, SAD filter could maintain a stable denitrification performance without backwash for 15 days, while decline of nitrate removal rate was observed in HD filter just 2 days after stopping the backwash. This different behavior was further confirmed as the SAD filter had a better hydraulic flow pattern. Analysis according to high-throughput 16S rRNA gene-based Illumina MiSeq sequencing clearly showed the microbial community evolution and differentiation among the samples of seed sludge, SAD and HD filters. Finally, the economic assessment was carried out, showing the operation cost of SAD filter was over 50% lower than that of HD filter.

Pyridine contamination poses a significant threat to human and environmental health. Due to the presence of nitrogen atom in the pyridine ring, the pi bond electrons are attracted toward it and make difficult for pyridine treatment with biological and chemical methods. In this study, coupling Fenton treatment with different biological process was designed to enhance pyridine biotransformation and further mineralization. After Fenton oxidation process optimized, pretreated pyridine was evaluated under three biological (anaerobic, aerobic and microaerobic) operating conditions. Under optimum Fenton oxidation, pyridine (30–75%) and TOC (5–25%) removal efficiencies were poor. Biological process alone also showed insignificant removal efficiency, particularly anaerobic (pyridine = 8.2%; TOC = 5.3%) culturing condition. However, combining Fenton pretreatment with biological process increased pyridine (93–99%) and TOC (87–93%) removals, suggesting that hydroxyl radical generated during Fenton oxidation enhanced pyridine hydroxylation and further mineralization in the biological (aerobic > microaerobic > anaerobic) process. Intermediates were analyzed with UPLC-MS and showed presence of maleic acid, pyruvic acid, glutaric dialdehyde, succinic semialdehyde and 4-formylamino-butyric acid. High-throughput sequencing analysis also indicated that Proteobacteria (35–43%) followed by Chloroflexi (10.6–24.3%) and Acidobacteria (8.0–29%) were the dominant phyla detected in the three biological treatment conditions. Co-existence of dominant genera under aerobic/microaerobic (Nitrospira > Dokdonella > Caldilinea) and anaerobic (Nitrospira > Caldilinea > Longilinea) systems most probably play significant role in biotransformation of pyridine and its intermediate products. Overall, integrating Fenton pretreatment with different biological process is a promising technology for pyridine treatment, especially the combined system enhanced anaerobic (>10 times) microbial pyridine biotransformation activity.

Bioelectrochemical systems (BESs) have been known as a promising technology for accelerating aromatic contaminants degradation and energy recovery. However, most existing studies concentrate on aromatics metabolized through a benzoyl-CoA pathway while those metabolized through other pathways are limited. In this work, resorcinol, a typical aromatic contaminant as well as a key central intermediate (other than benzoyl-CoA) involved in aromatics anaerobic biodegradation, was studied in BESs. Unlike the general impression of the relatively poor organic-to-current performance in the aromatics driven BESs, high efficiencies for resorcinol-fed BESs were observed with a current density and coulombic efficiency of up to 0.26 ± 0.05 mA cm−2 and 74.3 ± 10.7%, respectively. The higher performance likely correlates to the readily fermentable property of resorcinol. Analysis of microbial communities in the biofilm suggests a syntrophic interaction between resorcinol-degrading bacteria (RDB) and anode-respiring bacteria (ARB) was involved in current generation. Additional tests involving the removal of accumulated acetate through fast resorcinol feeding indicates that a mechanism based on direct utilization of resorcinol for current generation may also exist. This study extends the knowledge for the fate of aromatics in BESs and indicates that aromatics entering into the resorcinol metabolic pathway can be treated efficiently with good energy recovery efficiency in BESs.

The expanding population and rapid urbanisation, in particular in the Global South, are leading to global challenges on resource supply stress and rising waste generation. A transformation to resource-circular systems and sustainable recovery of carbon-containing and nutrient-rich waste offers a way to tackle such challenges. Eco-industrial parks have the potential to capture symbioses across individual waste producers, leading to more effective waste-recovery schemes. With whole-system design, economically attractive approaches can be achieved, reducing the nvironmental impacts while increasing the recovery of high-value resources. In this paper, an optimisation framework is developed to enable such design, allowing for wide ranging treatment options to be considered capturing both technological and fnancial detail. As well as technology selection, the framework also accounts for spatial aspects, with the design of suitable transport networks playing a key role. A range of scenarios are investigated using the network, highlighting the multi-faceted nature of the problem. The need to incorporate the impact of resource recovery at the design stage is shown to be of particular importance., Comment: 31 pages, 13 figures

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are designed to eliminate pollutants and alleviate environmental pollution resulting from human activities. However, the construction and operation of WWTPs consume resources, emit greenhouse gases (GHGs) and produce residual sludge, thus require further optimization. WWTPs are complex to control and optimize because of high non-linearity and variation. This study used a novel technique, multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (MADRL), to simultaneously optimize dissolved oxygen (DO) and chemical dosage in a WWTP. The reward function was specially designed from life cycle perspective to achieve sustainable optimization. Five scenarios were considered: baseline, three different effluent quality and cost-oriented scenarios. The result shows that optimization based on LCA has lower environmental impacts compared to baseline scenario, as cost, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions reduce to 0.890 CNY/m3-ww, 0.530 kWh/m3-ww, 2.491 kg CO2-eq/m3-ww respectively. The cost-oriented control strategy exhibits comparable overall performance to the LCA-driven strategy since it sacrifices environmental benefits but has lower cost as 0.873 CNY/m3-ww. It is worth mentioning that the retrofitting of WWTPs based on resources should be implemented with the consideration of impact transfer. Specifically, LCA-SW scenario decreases 10 kg PO4-eq in eutrophication potential compared to the baseline within 10 days, while significantly increases other indicators. The major contributors of each indicator are identified for future study and improvement. Last, the authors discussed that novel dynamic control strategies required advanced sensors or a large amount of data, so the selection of control strategies should also consider economic and ecological conditions. In a nutshell, there are still limitations of this work and future studies are required.

Pyridine and its derivatives are widely consumed and detected in the environment persistently, which can cause potential adverse impacts on environment and human health. Considering the fact that pyridine could absorb UV light at 254 nm to generate excited one, which could react with reductive radicals, promoting its structural changes, we proposed that one typical efficient advanced reduction process (ARP) which combines UV irradiation with sulfite could be used to eliminate pyridine quickly. Sulfite/UV process showed a higher pyridine removal rate with a pseudo-first-order reaction rate constant of 0.1439 min−1, which was 3 times of that in UV irradiation and 1.3 times in UV/H2O2 process. This was primarily due to reductive radicals (eaq–, H• and SO3•–) produced by UV irradiation. The removal rate of pyridine was highest in slightly alkaline environment. And the presence of oxygen, as well as certain concentration of humid acid just showed slight inhibition, indicating the possibility of application in practical environment. A positive impact was observed with increasing sulfite dosage, but it was gradually inhabited when the dosage was over 5 mM. The present study may provide an alternative efficient technology for the degradation of pyridine ring-containing substances.

The Nernst-Monod model is used to describe bio-anode performance with respect to the effect of the electron donor and anode potential. However, electron competition is not considered in the model, limiting its application in wastewater treatment systems. In this work, nitrate was employed to describe the influence of a competitive electron acceptor on bio-anode performance. A new dynamic model of microbial anode respiration and nitrate respiration was developed for the removal of nitrogen oxides. The competitive relationship between microbial anode respiration and nitrate respiration was investigated based on electron transfer as described by the kinetics of Nernst-Monod electron transfer and nitrate reduction. The experimental results showed that nitrate had a significant influence on microbial anode respiration. The model parameters were estimated with the experimental results obtained in a continuous-flow bioelectrochemical system (BES) fed with acetate. The simulated results revealed that nitrate respiration could indirectly affect the microbial anode respiration by altering the available substrate concentration. In addition, bacterial community analysis indicated that there were two dominant functional microorganisms coexisting in the anode chamber. The first microorganism was represented by Geobacter, which has extracellular electron-transfer abilities. The second was denitrifying bacteria, which can use the carbon sources in the anodic chamber and electrons from the electrode for nitrate reduction. This is the first time that mathematical modelling of nitrate reduction has been applied to BESs.

This paper focused on the feasibility and performance of an up-flow anaerobic bio-electrochemical system (UBES) for treating sulfamethoxazole (SMX) antibiotic wastewater at different COD loading rates (LRs) from 2.02 ± 0.13 to 6.09 ± 0.14 kgCOD/(m3·d). Open-circuit UBES had a lower average COD removal rate of 62.4 ± 4.7% in Run2, and the accumulation of volatile fatty acid (VFA) was occurred. However, closed-circuit UBES can alleviate the accumulation of VFA (which was decreased from 720.4 to 102.4 mg/L), the highest average COD, SMX removal rates were 85.7 ± 3.2% and 73.7 ± 2.0%, respectively. The closed-circuit UBES can withstand more than 3 times LR than open-circuit UBES, which proved that the ability of microorganisms to resist toxic substance stress was strengthened. And the mathematical models for pollutants removal rate were established and well interpreted the results, which also can guide the operation of UBES.

Some refractory organic matters or soluble microbial products remained in the effluents of refractory organic wastewater after biological secondary treatment and need an advanced treatment before final disposal. Graphene oxide (GO) was known to have potential to be the next generation membrane material. The functional organics/inorganic salts separation GO membrane preparation and application in wastewater advanced treatment could reduce energy or chemicals consumption and avoid organics/inorganic salts mixed concentrate waste problems after nanofiltration or reverse osmosis. In this study, we developed a novelty GO membrane aiming at advanced purification of organic matters in the secondary effluents of refractory organic wastewater and avoiding the organics/inorganic salts mixed concentrate waste problem. The influence of preparation conditions including pore size of support membrane, the number of GO layers and the applied pressure was investigated. It was found that for organics/inorganic salts mixture separation membrane preparation, the rejection and flux would achieve balance for the support membrane at a pore size of ~0.1μm and the number of GO layers of has an optimization value (~10 layers). A higher assemble pressure (~10bar) contributed to the acquisition of a higher rejection efficiency and lower roughness membrane. This as prepared GO membrane was applied to practical secondary effluent of a chemical synthesis pharmaceuticals wastewater. A good organic matter rejection efficiency (76%) and limited salt separation (

A 180 L anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) was operated for 253 days to treat real pharmaceutical wastewater, which mainly composed of β-lactams antibiotics (BLAs) including amoxicillin, ceftriaxone, cefoperazone and ampicillin. The operation was divided into three stages with hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 48 h, 36 h and 24 h, respectively, the corresponding average organic loading rates (OLRs) and antibiotics loading rates (ALRs) increased from 2.37 ± 0.28 to 4.46 ± 0.87 kg-COD·m−3·d−1, and from 19.06 ± 0.67 to 37.91 ± 3.57 g-BLAs·m−3·d−1, respectively. The highest removal efficiencies of amoxicillin, ceftriaxone, cefoperazone and ampicillin were 73.2 ± 4.3%, 47.7 ± 2.2%, 79.4 ± 4.1% and 34.6 ± 3.3%, respectively. The obtained total COD removal efficiency was as high as 94.0% and accompanied with VFA accumulation (249 ± 25 to 375 ± 61 mg·L−1) as well as biogas generation (0.195 ± 0.017 to 0.291 ± 0.032 L·gCODremoval−1), >66% of which was methane (0.135 ± 0.011 to 0.196 ± 0.021 L·gCODremoval−1). Moreover, basing on the back propagation neural network (BPNN) theory, the mathematical models were developed and well calibrated for simulating the AnMBR performance in the biodegradation of COD and antibiotics.

In this study, the removal efficiency of nitrogen, specific nitrification rate (SNR), specific denitrification rate (SDNR) and compliance rate of the novel tapered variable diameter biological fluidized bed (TVDBFB) and anoxic/oxic (AO) process were compared at different temperatures. The results showed that the optimal TN, NH4+-N, and TKN removal efficiencies of the TVDBFB were 76%, 89% and 88%, respectively, and those of AO were 65%, 67% and 69%, respectively. The SNR and SDNR of the TVDBFB were significantly higher than those of AO. The TVDBFB had a smaller footprint than AO. The alkalinity/NH4+-N, BOD5/TN and temperature play important roles in the compliance rate. Increasing the carrier packing rate has emerged as a new strategy for enhancing the compliance rate. Mathematical models were developed and determined to be well-fitted with the experimental values, which can be employed to predict the SNR and SDNR of the TVDBFB.

The biological treatment of antibiotic-containing wastewater is a mainstream process, but the antibacterial activity from the persistence of antibiotics would inhibit the biological activity and function of wastewater treatment plants and lead to the risk of transmission of antibiotic resistant bacteria and genes. In this study, UV photolysis was selected as an appropriate pretreatment technology for antibiotic-containing wastewater. It could decompose many kinds of antibiotics and was not inhibited by the coexisting organics in wastewater. The antibacterial activities of five kinds of antibiotics, which were eliminated with UV irradiation, exhibited a significantly positive correlation with their parent compound concentrations. The photodecomposition of the main functional groups in antibiotics contributed to the elimination of antibacterial activity. Defluorination was the main pathway to eliminate the antibacterial activity of antibiotics containing a fluorine substituent (e.g., florfenicol and ofloxacin), while the photoinduced opening of the β-lactam ring was the most efficient route to eliminate the antibacterial activity of β-lactam antibiotics (e.g. cefalexin, amoxicillin and ampicillin). These results demonstrated that UV photolysis could be adopted as an efficient and promising pretreatment strategy for the source control of antibiotic antibacterial activity by the decomposition of antibiotic functional groups before the biological treatment unit.

Sulfur-based denitrification process has attracted increasing attentions because it does not rely on the external addition of organics and avoids the risk of COD exceeding the limit. Traditionally, limestone is commonly employed to maintain a neutral condition (SLAD process), but it may reduce the efficiency as the occupied zone by limestone cannot directly contribute to the denitrification. In this study, we propose a novel sulfur-based denitrification process by coupling with iron(II) carbonate ore (SICAD system). The ore was demonstrated to play roles as the buffer agent and additional electron donor. Moreover, the acid produced through sulfur driven denitrification was found to promote the Fe(II) leaching from the ore and likely extend the reaction zone from the surface to the liquid. As a result, more biomass was accumulated in the SICAD system compared with the controls (sulfur, iron(II) carbonate ore and SLAD systems). Owing to these synergistic effects of sulfur and iron(II) carbonate on denitrification, SICAD system showed much higher denitrification rate (up to 720.35 g·N/m3·d) and less accumulation of intermediates (NO2- and N2O) than the controls. Additionally, sulfate production in SICAD system was reduced. These findings offer great potential of SICAD system for practical use as a highly efficient postdenitrification process.

Graphene oxide (GO) membranes have the potential to be next-generation membranes. However, the GO layer easily swells in water and risks shedding during the long-term filtration. Organic GO interlayer organic cross-linking agent was not resistant to oxidation, which limits the application scope of GO membrane. In this study, an inorganic cross-linked GO membrane was prepared via the reaction of sodium tetraborate and GO hydroxyl groups, and a -B-O-C- cross-linking bond was detected by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Additionally, a new atomic force microscope scratch method to evaluate the cross-linking force of a nanoscale GO layer was proposed. It showed that the critical destructive load of the inorganic cross-linked GO membrane increased from 8 to 80 nN, which was a 10-fold increase from that of the nonlinked sample. During the NaOH/sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) destructive wash tests, morphology, flux and retention rate of inorganic cross-linked GO remained stable while the comparative membranes showed significant destruction. At the same time, based on the better oxidation resistance, organic membrane fouling was effectively controlled by the introduction of trace ·OH radicals. This study provides a new perspective for GO membrane preparation, interlayer cross-linking force testing and membrane fouling control.

The application of electro-Fenton membrane for micropollutants removal is limited due to the trade-off between membrane rejection and water permeability. Herein, we fabricated a carboxylated carbon nanotubes (CCNT) intercalated reduced graphene oxide (RGO) composite electro-Fenton membrane with a 1.8-fold higher permeability (19.6 L m−2 h−1 bar−1), a 1.9-fold higher rejection (61.1%), and a 2.4-fold higher removal rate (38.6 mg m−2 h−1) of florfenicol. This coenhancement was attributed to the intercalation of CCNT, which significantly enlarged the interlayer distance and pore size of membrane, enhanced surface charge density and electrical conductivity. In addition, the consistency between simulated and experimental results of another six pharmaceuticals micropollutants verified the reliability of the four regression equations, which could be used to preliminarily predict applicability of the electro-Fenton membrane for removal of a specific pollutant. This study provides new insights into the design of high-performance catalytic membranes for efficient removal of micropollutants together with high water permeability, which makes it an attractive choice for membrane development in real scale applications.

Biochar was utilized to intensify constructed wetland (CW) for further organic and nitrogen removal from secondary wastewater. Four sets of non-aerated biochar amended vertical flow CW (VFCW) were developed to investigate the synergistic effects of biochar and microbes on pollutant removal. Results showed that the average COD and nitrogen removal efficiencies of VFCW1 (with 1% w/w biochar with microbe and plants) achieved 89.1 ± 5.6% and 90.2 ± 3.1% respectively, and their corresponding removal rates of 10.2 ± 0.8 mg-COD/(m3.d) and 3.57 ± 0.3 mg-TN/(m3.d) which were 35 and 52.3% higher than control. The biochar’s dissolved organic carbon release in VFCWs indicated that water and acidic media portray the optimum conditions for nitrogen removal. The 16S RNA gene sequencing analysis indicated that in the biochar-amended VFCWs, bacterial phylum Proteobacteria (24.13–51.95%) followed by Chloroflexi (5.64–25.01%), Planctomycetes (8.48–14.43%), Acidobacteria (2.29–11.65%) were abundantly enhanced. Conclusively, incorporating biochar in non-aerated VFCWs is an efficient technique for enhancing nitrogen removal from secondary effluent.

Low-flush toilets have received increasing attention in relation to the water crisis in water-scarce regions because the vacuum flushing system (VFS) can reduce the amount of water required for flushing by approximately 80%. However, low-flush toilet wastewater exhibits the characteristics of high pollutant concentrations and cannot be directly discharged into urban pipe networks; therefore, decentralized wastewater treatment is necessary. Traditional control process (mainly consisting of hydrolysis acidification tank (HAT), anaerobic-anoxic–oxic (AAO) tank, coagulation sedimentation filtration tank and UV disinfection) was unsatisfactory for treating this type of wastewater. Therefore, a newly designed integrated biological-electrocatalytic (AAIE) process (mainly consisting of anaerobic baffled reactor (ABR), alternating internal circulation activated sludge process (AICS), and electrocatalytic oxidation (EC)) was introduced. ABR achieved large amounts of organic matter removal, the organic biodegradation kinetics revealed that the maximum specific degradation rate of the ABR was 0.050 to 0.082 d−1; AICS further removed COD and nitrogen, the denitrification rate and growth rate of nitrifying bacteria in the AICS were in the range of 0.079–0.121 kg/(kg·d) and 0.32–1.54 d−1, respectively. The temperature and organic loading rate were identified as two key parameters for ABR and AICS to remove pollutants, therefore, EC was the guarantee to make the effluent quality met the directly discharge standard of China (GB 18918-2002), especially in winter. The results showed that the AAIE process presented COD, colority, ammonia and total nitrogen removal rates of 98.5 ± 0.7%, 98.8 ± 0.6%, 97.0 ± 0.4% and 93.4 ± 2.6%, respectively, which were considerably higher than those of the control process. Furthermore, the economic analysis indicated that the AAIE process was feasible and may help to pave the way for wide application of biological-electrocatalytic processes for highly concentrated toilet wastewater treatment.

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) play an important role within the urban water cycle in preventing the natural water environment and human health from being negatively affected by human activities. However, wastewater treatment processes such as the discharge of effluent and indirect emissions resulting from energy or chemical production, also negatively affect the environment. Footprints have been used to track human influence on the environment through different areas of concern and have been applied in assessing the sustainability of WWTPs. A comprehensive review of footprint assessment for evaluating the wastewater treatment process in WWTPs was investigated in this article. The review showed that the carbon footprint and the water footprint were the two of the most popular footprints for evaluating the sustainability of WWTPs, and other footprint (such as nitrogen and phosphorus footprints) assessment applications were also introduced to assess the eutrophication of water bodies. To promote the application of footprint assessment on WWTP, this article regulated the study goals, frameworks, system boundary, data treatment methods, resultant interpretation process. The pros and cons of footprint assessments were discussed and investigated in detail, several suggestions were come up with for the improvement of footprint assessments. The analyzation of footprint assessments under different WWTPs revealed that wastewater treatment technologies and scales significantly impacted the footprints. Moreover, the research hotspots identified by way of a keyword network diagram showed that researchers tended to propose new indicators and models for the grey water footprint and the carbon footprint respectively, and water-carbon-energy nexus was a promising direction for future studies. Finally, two possible application scenarios, element tracing through modified footprints and management improvement through mathematical optimization, were proposed to optimize the operation strategies of WWTPs. Overall, footprint assessment research for WWTPs is still at the initial stage and needs further exploration and improvement, e.g. introducing new tools, exploring system variation under various scenarios, combining other footprints, and implementing the nexus assessment.

Carbon coated stainless-steel (SS) electrode has been suggested to be a powerful composite electrode with high conductivity, excellent biocompatibility and good mechanical strength, which is promising for scaling up the bioelectrochemical systems (BESs). However, the already reported carbon coating methods were independent on the production of SS material. Additional steps and investment of equipment for carbon coating are costly, and the industrialization of these carbon coating processes remains challenging. In this study, we report an industrializable carbon coating approach that was embedded into the production line of the SS wire, which was realized through a wire-drawing process with graphite emulsion as the lubricant and carbon source. We found the slide of SS wire through the dies was essential for the graphite coating in terms of loading amount and stability. When the graphite coated SS wire was prepared as the anode and operated in a BESs, the current density reached 1.761 ± 0.231 mA cm−2, which was 20 times higher than that without graphite coating. Biomass analysis was then conducted, confirming the superior bioelectrochemical performance was attributed to the improvement of biocompatibility by the graphite coating layer. Furthermore, graphite coating by the wire-drawing process was systematically compared with the existing methods, which showed a comparable or even better bioelectrochemical performance but with extremely low cost (0.036 $·m−2) and seconds level of the time consumption. Overall, this study offers a cost-effective and industrializable approach to preparing graphite coated SS electrode, which may open up great opportunities to promote the development of BESs at large scale.

This paper presents the effects of different concentrations of citric acid (CA) and ethylene diamine tetra-acetic acid (EDTA) when used as additive reagents for the treatment of sewage sludge for agricultural use. Herein, both the retention of nutrients and removal of metals from the sewage sludge are examined. The average removal rate for the metals after treatment by CA decreased in the order Cu>Pb>Cd>Cr>Zn, while the rates after treatment by EDTA decreased in the order of Pb>Cu>Cr>Cd>Zn. After treatment with CA and EDTA, total nitrogen and total phosphorus concentrations in the sludge decreased, while the content of available nitrogen and Olsen-P increased. In addition, a multi-criteria analysis model-fuzzy analytic network process method (with 3 main factors and 12 assessment sub-factors) was adopted to evaluate the effectiveness of different treatment methods. The results showed that the optimal CA and EDTA concentrations for sewage sludge treatment were 0.60 and 0.125 mol/L, respectively.

Antibiotics, especially halogenated antibiotics, which account for nearly 40% of the total antibiotics in China, pose great environmental risks; however, the superior stability of C–F bond and low concentrations hinder their degradation, indicating the need for developing of highly efficient treatment technologies. There is an additional concern that some degradation products could be as active/toxic as or even more than their parent compound. The stable C–F bond can be relative easily cleaved by UV light irradiation, which could come from sunlight. Herein, a novel UV-driven electro-Fenton catalytic membrane (UV-EFCM) filtration system that favors resistance elimination and efficient degradation of low-concentration antibiotics is proposed for the first time. The photo-electrochemical/electro-Fenton (PEC/EF) coupling reaction is synchronously conducted in a sequential filtration system. Almost complete degradation and high mineralization (78.4 ± 9.1%) of florfenicol were achieved at a concentration of as low as 14 µM with the hydraulic retention time of 0.98 h during the UV-EFCM filtration system. Complete elimination of its antibacterial activity, and significant defluorination improvement (56 ± 3.6%) compared to electro-Fenton filtration process (11 ± 5.3%) were achieved due to the prior cleavage of the stable C–F bond with antibiotic potency under UV light pretreatment. This study thus proposes a novel UV-EFCM filtration system, which couples PEC and EF with a potential to tackle the environmental problems associated with antibiotic pollution.

Bioelectrochemical systems (BESs) have been studied extensively during the past decades owing primarily to their versatility and potential in addressing the water-energy-resource nexus. In stark contrast to the significant advancements that have been made in developing innovative processes for pollution control and bioresource/bioenergy recovery, minimal progress has been achieved in demonstrating the feasibility of BESs in scaled-up applications. This lack of scaled-up demonstration could be ascribed to the absence of suitable electrode modules (EMs) engineered for large-scale application. In this study, we report a scalable composite-engineered EM (total volume of 1 m3), fabricated using graphite-coated stainless steel and carbon felt, that allows integrating BESs into mainstream wastewater treatment technologies. The cost-effectiveness and easy scalability of this EM provides a viable and clear path to facilitate the transition between the success of the lab studies and applications of BESs to solve multiple pressing environmental issues at full-scale.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are regarded as priority pollutants owing to their toxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic characteristics. Perylene is a kind of 5-ring PAH with biological toxicity, and classified as a class III carcinogen by the World Health Organization (WHO). Nowadays, some of its derivatives are often used as industrial pigments. Hence, urgent attention is highly needed to develop new and improved techniques for PAHs and their derivatives removal from the environment. In this study, Fenton oxidation process was hybridized with the biological (anaerobic and aerobic) treatments for the removal of perylene pigment from wastewater. The experiments were carried out by setting Fenton treatment system before and between the biological treatments. The biological results showed that COD removal efficiency reached 60% during 24 h HRT with an effluent COD concentration of 1567.78 mg/L. After the HRT increased to 48 h, the COD removal efficiency was slightly increased (67.9%). However, after combining Fenton treatment with biological treatment (Anaerobic-Fenton-Aerobic), the results revealed over 85% COD removal efficiency and the effluent concentration less than 600 mg/L which was selected as the better treatment configuration for the biological and chemical combined system. The microbial community analysis of activated sludge was carried out with high-throughput Illumina sequencing platform and results showed that Pseudomonas, Citrobacter and Methylocapsa were found to be the dominant genera detected in aerobic and anaerobic reactors. These dominant bacteria depicted that the community composition of the reactors for treating perylene pigments wastewater were similar to that of the soil contaminated by PAHs and the activated sludge from treating PAHs wastewater. Economic analysis results revealed that the reagent cost was relatively cheap, amounting to 10.64 yuan per kilogram COD. This study vividly demonstrated that combining Fenton treatment with biological treatment was efficient and cost-effective.