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The production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the rhizosphere is limited by the low extracellular electron transfer capacity of indigenous microorganisms. In the present study, electrical stimulation was used to promote the generation of rhizospheric ROS by accelerating extracellular electron transfer. The result showed that •OH concentrations in the electrically stimulated group (ES group) exceeded the control group by 15.76 %. Accordingly, the removal rate of the target pollutant (i.e., 2,4-dichlorophenol, and sulfamethoxazole) was 20.01 %-24.80 % higher in the ES group than in the control group. The sediment of the ES group had a higher capacity (30.55 %) and a lower electrical resistance (29.15 %) compared to the control group, which subsequently promoted the dissimilatory iron reduction to produce Fe(II) for triggering a Fenton-like process. The increased extracellular respiratory capacity under electrical stimulation could be attributed to the polarization of C-N and CO bonds, which provided more electron storage sites and thus participated in proton-coupled electron transfer. In addition, the concentration of ATP and co-enzymes (NADH/NAD + and Complex I/Complex III), reflecting electron exchange within respiratory chains, increased distinctly under electrical stimulation. Applying electrical stimulation seemed feasible to increase ROS production and contaminant degradation in the rhizosphere, deepening the understanding of electrical stimulation to promote the production of ROS in the natural system., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Microbial advanced oxidation, a fundamental process for pollutant degradation in nature, is limited in efficiency by the weak respiration of indigenous microorganisms. In this study, an electric field was employed to enhance microbial respiration and facilitate the microbial advanced oxidation of p-nitrophenol (PNP) in simulated wetlands with alternation of anaerobic and aerobic conditions. With intermittent air aeration, an electric field of 0.8 V promoted extracellular electron transfer to increase Fe 2+ generation through dissimilatory iron reduction and the production of hydroxyl radicals (•OH) through Fenton-like reactions. As a result, the PNP removal rate of the electrically-stimulated group was higher than that of the control (72.15 % vs 46.88 %). Multiple lines of evidence demonstrated that the electrically-induced polarization of respiratory enzymes expedited proton-coupled electron transfer within the respiratory chain to accelerate microbial advanced oxidation of PNP. The polarization of respiratory enzymes with the electric field hastened proton outflow to increase cell membrane potential for adenosine triphosphate (ATP) generation, which enhanced intracellular electron transportation to benefit reactive oxygen species generation. This study provided a new method to enhance microelectrochemical remediation of the contaminant in wetlands via the combination of intermittent air aeration., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The impacts of the increased iron in the waste-activated sludge (WAS) on its anaerobic digestion were investigated. It was found that low Fe(III) content (< 750 mg/L) promoted WAS anaerobic digestion, while the continual increase of Fe(III) inhibited CH 4 production and total chemical oxygen demand (TCOD) removal. As the Fe(III) content increased to 1470 mg/L, methane production has been slightly inhibited about 5 % compared with the group containing 35 mg/L Fe(III). Particularly, as Fe(III) concentration was up to 2900 mg/L, CH 4 production, and TCOD removal decreased by 43.6 % and 37.5 %, respectively, compared with the group with 35 mg/L Fe(III). Furthermore, the percentage of CO 2 of the group with 2900 mg/L Fe(III) decreased by 52.8 % compared with the group containing 35 mg/L Fe(III). It indicated that Fe(II) generated by the dissimilatory iron reduction might cause CO 2 consumption, which was confirmed by X-ray diffraction that siderite (FeCO 3 ) was generated in the group with 2900 mg/L Fe(III). Further study revealed that Fe(III) promoted the WAS solubilization and hydrolysis, but inhibited acidification and methane production. The methanogenesis test with H 2 /CO 2 as a substrate showed that CO 2 consumption weakened hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis and then increased H 2 partial pressure, further causing VFA accumulation. Microbial community analysis indicated that the abundance of hydrogen-utilizing methanogens decreased with the high Fe(III) content. Our study suggested that the increase of Fe(III) in sludge might inhibit methanogenesis by consuming or precipitating CO 2 . To achieve maximum bioenergy conversion, the iron content should be controlled to lower than 750 mg/L. The study may provide new insights into the mechanistic understanding of the inhibition of high Fe(III) content on the anaerobic digestion of WAS., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Anaerobic digestion is a promising method to recover energy from waste, but the slow rate of fermentation hinders its application. Yeast pre-fermentation has been reported to enhance organic matter solubilization and ethanol production to promote syntrophic metabolism and methanogenesis. However, the pre-fermentation with yeast has not been optimized so far. In this study, the lab-scale experiment was conducted to optimize operational conditions, and a pilot-scale study was conducted to evaluate the combined strategy of yeast pre-fermentation and biochar supplementation. Results demonstrated that at a fermentation time of 6 h, temperature of 30 °C, and dry yeast dosage of 2‰, the highest ethanol production was achieved, which accounted for 6.2% of the total COD of pre-fermentation effluent of a mixture of waste-activated sludge and food waste. The methane yield of the pre-fermented waste averaged 161.3 mL/g VS/d, which was 18.7% higher than that of the control group without the yeast inoculation (135.8 mL/g VS/d). With supplementing biochar of 0.5 and 1 g/L, the average methane production was 27.8% and 36.4% higher than the control group, respectively. The volatile solid removal rate was over 10% higher than the control (58.2 ± 3.12%). Consistently, the electrochemical properties of sludge with biochar were significantly improved. A pilot-scale experiment further showed that the methane production with the yeast pre-fermentation and biochar supplementation reached 227 mL/g VS/d, 54.3% higher than that without yeast pre-fermentation and biochar. This study provided a feasible method to combine yeast pre-fermentation and biochar supplementation under optimal conditions, which effectively increased methane production during anaerobic digestion of organic waste., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Fenton sludge generated in the flocculation stage of the Fenton oxidation process contains significant amounts of ferric iron and organic pollutants, which require proper treatment. Previous studies have demonstrated that adding Fenton sludge to an anaerobic digester can decompose some of the organic pollutants in the Fenton sludge to lower its environmental risk, but iron gradually accumulates in the reactor, which weakens the sustainability of the method. In this study, Fenton sludge was introduced into a hydrolytic acidification reactor with a weak acid environment to relieve the iron accumulation as well as improve the degradation of organic matter. The results showed that the added Fenton sludge acted as an extracellular electron acceptor to induce dissimilatory iron reduction, which increased chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal and acidification efficiency by 16.1% and 19.8%, respectively, compared to the group without Fenton sludge. Along with the operation, more than 90% of the Fe(III) in Fenton sludge was reduced to Fe(II), and part of them was released to the effluent. Moreover, the Fe(II) in the effluent could be used as flocculants and Fenton reagents to further decrease the effluent COD by 29.8% and 44.5%, respectively. It provided a sustainable strategy to reuse Fenton sludge to enhance organic degradation based on the iron cycle., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare no competing financial interests., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

As a vital part of the global carbon cycle, photosynthesis helps in fixing CO 2 to produce diverse biomass. However, over-reliance on optical density results in inadequate photosynthesis under limited light sources. The coupling of extracellular respiration and photosynthetic chain via the quinone pool provides a possibility for electrically driven photosynthesis in darkness, which is not well understood. In this study, CO 2 fixation of photosynthetic bacteria Rhodopseudomonas palustris was enhanced in the dark via extracellular electron uptake from the electrode at -0.4 V. The copy number of R. palustris increased by 35 folds during 28 days of operation, accompanied by the increase of ATP content, NADH/NAD + , and NADPH/NADP + of cells. Especially, the activity of Rubisco, the key enzyme of the Calvin cycle, increased by 28 % during electro-cultivation. Accordingly, the electrochemical activity of R. palustris was found to increase, which might be attributed to the structural modification of protein-like substances due to the enhanced proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) process in electro-cultivation, which was further confirmed by in situ Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and kinetic isotope effect tests. This study indicated that extracellular respiration could be electrostimulated via PCET to maintain photosynthesis in R. palustris in the dark., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In this study, ethanol-type fermentation pretreatment and adding two types of biochar prepared at 600 °C and 1000 °C (referred to as SS600 and SS1000) were combined to alleviate acid accumulation via strengthening direct interspecies electron transfer (DIET) during anaerobic digestion of food waste. Results demonstrated that ethanol production was about 11 g/L after the ethanol-type fermentation at pH of 4-5 for 4 days, accounting for 8.9% of the influent COD of the subsequent methanogenesis. After the ethanol-type fermentation pretreatment, average methane productions of digesters with SS600 and SS1000 addition increased by 86.3% and 64.9% to 618.1 ± 30.1 and 527.3 ± 25.4 mL/g VS under solid retention time (SRT) of 25 d respectively, and the conductivity of sludge increased by 95.3% and 65.3% compared to digester without biochar addition. Furthermore, adding biochar also could accelerate the recovery of acidification digester. The relative abundance of Methanothrix performing DIET were enriched with SS600. These results suggested that coupling ethanol-type fermentation with biochar addition could strengthen DIET to resist the shocks of high organic loading rate., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The aim of this study was to investigate the primary mechanism of magnetite promoting anaerobic degradation of aromatic compounds under the low-concentration sulphate conditions. Under influent conditions of benzoate at 50 mM-chemical oxygen demand (COD) and sulphate at 15 mM, magnetite promoted benzoate degradation (77.1% vs 56.3%), while the effluent sulphate concentration was slightly higher than that without magnetite (1.6 mM vs 0.7 mM), inconsistent with functional gene prediction that both sulphate respiration and sulphur compound respiration were relatively more active in the presence of magnetite. Remarkably, X-ray diffraction showed that, signal related to Fe 3 O 4 faded away and finally was replaced by FeSO 4 and FeS, indicating that magnetite participated in benzoate degradation coupled to sulphate reduction via dissimilatory Fe(III) reduction. Further X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy showed that, signal related to S 0 was only detected with magnetite, suggesting the possibility of re-oxidation of sulphide to elemental sulphur coupled to Fe(III) reduction. This was further supported by the increase in abundance of Desulfuromonas acetexigens capable of growing on Fe(III). In addition, magnetite specially enriched the chemolithotrophic sulphur-disproportionating microbes, Desulfovibrio aminophilus, which might proceed the disproportionation of elemental sulphur to sulphate and sulphide to achieve a sulphur cycle for benzoate degradation., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Biochar, with redox moieties or conjugated π-bond, can act as electron shuttle or conductor to facilitate electron transfer of syntrophic metabolism to enhance anaerobic digestion. High pyrolysis temperature (>500 ℃) is usually required to prepare conductive biochar, which however may cause biochar to loss redox moieties such as quinone/hydroquinone that are capable of serving as electron shuttle. Considering that magnetite is an excellent conductor which has been applied in improving syntrophic metabolism of anaerobic digestion, a novel magnetite-contained biochar was prepared using iron-rich Fenton sludge as raw material in this study. Amorphous iron oxides of Fenton sludge were transformed into magnetite at 400 ℃ of pyrolysis, while redox quinone/hydroquinone moieties of biochar were preserved well. Correspondingly, this magnetic biochar owned both high capacitance and excellent conductivity. When supplementing the biochar into an anaerobic digestion system, methane production was significantly enhanced. This study also offered a new approach to recycle Fenton sludge that is regarded as hazardous material., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The study presented here was to evaluate the effects of combining biological ethanol-type fermentation pretreatment (BEFP) with biochar on the growth of novel species capable of direct interspecies electron transfer (DIET) and methanogenesis in anaerobic co-digestion (AcoD) of kitchen wastes (KWs) and waste activated sludge (WAS). The results showed that, after BEFP, the genera capable of extracellular electron transfer to Fe(III) oxides or the elemental sulfur, such as Geobacter, Sphaerochaeta and Sporanaerobacter species, were detected, which however were not detected in the seed sludge. In the presence of biochar, their abundance was further increased, suggesting that biochar stimulated their growth. With biochar, methane production rate increased by about 44% and the effluent concentration of total organic substrates further declined, compared with that without biochar. With biochar, methane production efficiency reached 241.6 mL/g-COD, more than 30% higher than that without biochar (185.0 mL/g-COD), suggesting that more energy from the oxidation of organic substrates was converted into methane. Analysis of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and three-dimensional excitation emission matrix (3D-EEM) showed that decomposition of complex organic compounds in KWs and WAS was enhanced, since the novel species might proceed DIET with methanogens and participate in the metabolism of complex organic compounds., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Bioelectrochemical system (BESs) has been applied to treat refractory wastewaters such as phenolic wastewater since microbial anodic oxidation driven by electroactive bacteria is believed to enhance decomposition of organic matters. Considering that most of electroactive bacteria are sensitive to phenol and cannot utilize it directly, it was assumed that fermentative bacteria and electroactive bacteria in mixed-culture BESs cooperated to degrade phenol. To clarify this assumption, a microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) for phenol degradation with Cr(VI)-reduction bio-cathode was developed in this study. Results showed that phenol served as anodic electron donor was more efficient than acetate for cathodic reduction of Cr(VI) since the slow release of acetate from phenol degradation with fermentative bacteria might make full use of acetate as electron donor for anodic oxidation. The production of quorum sensing (QS) signal molecules were higher in phenolic anolyte, confirming the syntrophic metabolism among phenol-degrading bacteria and electroactive bacteria. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) test and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) indicated that phenolic anolyte and anodic sludge had higher electron transfer ability due to enhanced bio-electrochemisty processes in syntrophic metabolism., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Anaerobic digestion of waste activated sludge (WAS) to produce acetate has recently attracted growing interest, while the slow hydrolytic acidification of sludge and the consumption of acetate by methanogens both decrease the yield of acetate. In this study, Fe 3 O 4 was added to a WAS anaerobic digester under alkaline conditions (pH = 10). The concentration of short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) during WAS anaerobic fermentation was found to be affected positively by Fe 3 O 4 . The maximal SCFA production of the Fe 3 O 4 -added digester was 3619.4 mg/L, while the maximal SCFA production in the control was 2899.7 mg/L. The increase of SCFA with Fe 3 O 4 was mainly resulted from the increase in acetate accumulation (accounting for 90%), because Fe 3 O 4 stimulated dissimilatory iron reduction (DIR) that participated in the decomposition of complex organics and the transformation of pronionate and butyrate into acetate. Further investigation showed that each step of hydrolytic-acidification process was promoted except the homoacetogenesis. The activity of enzymes and abundance of microbes relevant to hydrolysis and acidification were in agreement with the above results., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declared that they have no conflicts of interest to this work., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Anaerobic digestion (AD) has been widely applied in the treatment of industrial wastewater containing oxidized sulfur compounds. However, the production of hydrogen sulfide usually limits the syntrophic metabolism proceeded by interspecies hydrogen transfer (IHT), due to its corrosive and toxic properties. The current study was in an attempt to establish direct interspecies electron transfer (DIET) to resist the toxic inhibition from hydrogen sulfide and keep syntrophic metabolism stable. The results showed that, in the presence of magnetite, the methane production was improved about 3-10 folds at each ratio of COD/SO 4 2- , while the enhancement of methanogenesis had almost no negative effect on sulfate reduction. With magnetite, the sludge conductance increased about 3 folds, but the concentration of c-type cytochromes decreased, suggesting that the potential DIET via both electrically conductive pili and outer surface c-type cytochromes was established. Microbial community revealed that, Veillonella species, the Fe(III)-reducing genus capable of reducing sulfate to hydrogen sulfide, were specially enriched with magnetite. Together with the relatively higher abundance of Methanothrix and Methanosarcina species, the novel DIET between Fe(III)/sulfate-reducing genus and methanogens was inferred to be responsible for the synergetic enhancement of methanogenesis and sulfate removal., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Surface functionalization is an effective strategy in the precise control of electronic surface states of two-dimensional materials for promoting their applications. In this study, based on the strong coordination interaction between the transition-metal centers and N atoms, the surface functionalization of few-layer MoS 2 nanosheets was successfully prepared by liquid phase exfoliation method in N, N-dimethylformamide (DMF), 1-methyl-2-pyrrolidinone, and formamide. The cytotoxicity of surface-functionalized MoS 2 nanosheets was for the first time evaluated by the methylthiazolyldiphenyl-tetrazoliumbromide assays. An electrochemical sensor was constructed based on glass carbon electrode (GCE) modified by MoS 2 nanosheets obtained in DMF, which exhibits relatively higher sensitivity to Cd 2+ detection and lower cytotoxicity against MCF-7 cells. The mechanisms of surface functionalization and selectively detecting Cd 2+ were investigated by density functional theory calculations together with various spectroscopic measurements. It was found that surface-functionalized MoS 2 nanosheets could be generated through Mo-N covalent bonds due to the orbital hybridization between the 5 s orbitals of Mo atoms and the 2p orbitals of N atoms of the solvent molecules. The high selectivity of the sensor is attributed to the coordination reaction between Cd 2+ and O donor atoms of DMF adsorbed on MoS 2 nanosheets. The robust anti-interference is ascribed to the strong binding energy of Cd 2+ and O atoms of DMF. Under the optimum conditions, the electrochemical sensor exhibits highly sensitive and selective assaying of Cd 2+ with a measured detection limit of 0.2 nM and a linear range from 2 nM to 20 μM., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Coking wastewater contains many types of toxic and hazardous pollutants that have serious toxic effects on human beings as well as aquatic organisms. However, few studies have evaluated the detoxification efficiencies of the treatment processes that are extensively performed in operational coking wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). This study investigates the detoxification efficiencies of a combined anaerobic-anoxic-oxic (A 2 O)-ozonation and A 2 O-Fenton oxidation process in two coking WWTPs using an acute immobilization test for Daphnia magna, acute toxicity test for adult zebrafish, embryo toxicity test for zebrafish and the comet assay. The raw coking wastewaters displayed high acute daphnia and fish toxicity, zebrafish embryo toxicity and genotoxicity. The A 2 O processing unit effectively removed acute and embryo toxicity, but not genotoxicity. In addition, the A 2 O effluent quality did not meet the integrated wastewater discharge standard in China (GB18918-2002). The ozonation and Fenton oxidation units used as post-treatments in these two plants not only treated the coking wastewater to the discharge standard but also reduced the genotoxicity. However, the final effluents still showed potential genotoxicity after high dilution. The results suggest that the discharge of treated coking wastewater probably poses potential risks to human health and the environment even if it met regulatory standards., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

A sensitive, rapid and label-free colorimetric aptasensor for sulfadimethoxine (SDM) detection was developed based on the tunable peroxidase-like activity of graphene/nickel@palladium nanoparticle (Gr/Ni@Pd) hybrids. The addition of the SDM aptamer could inhibit the peroxidase-like catalytic activity of the hybrids. However, the target SDM and aptamer could be triggered tightly and recover the catalytic activity of the Gr/Ni@Pd hybrids. Due to the peroxidase-like catalytic activity, Gr/Ni@Pd could catalyze the decomposition of H 2 O 2 with releasing hydroxyl radicals which further oxidized reagent 3, 3', 5, 5'-Tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) to oxTMB accompanied with a colorless-to-blue color change. The original color change could be applied to obtain quantitative detection of SDM, due to the relationship between the concentration of the target and the color difference. As a result, this approach performed a linear response for SDM from 1 to 500 ng/mL with a limit detection of 0.7 ng/mL (S/N = 3) under the optimized conditions and realized the detection of SDM in spiked lake water samples. Therefore, this colorimetric aptasensor was an alternative assay for SDM detection in real water. Moreover, with its design principle, this work might be applied to detecting other small molecule by employing appropriate aptamer., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The effects of several aquatic environmental factors on the photochemical transformation of 2,2',4,4'-tetrabromodiphenyl ether (BDE-47) have been investigated. Ferric ion (Fe(III)) has been found to promote the phototransformation of BDE-47, and this process is further enhanced with the added chloride ion (Cl(-)), while it is suppressed with increasing pH. Electron spin resonance results show that the formation of hydroxyl radical, and the added Cl(-) could influence the generation of hydroxyl radical in Fe(III) solution. Hence, Cl(-) enhances the phototransformation of BDE-47 most probably because of the reaction with Fe(III) species under irradiation, yielding hydroxyl and chloride radicals. These radicals can not only decompose PBDEs, but also lead to their photodebromination and photochlorination. These results indicate that the aquatic environmental factors and Cl(-) in particular played an important role in the photochemical transformation process of PBDEs, providing insight into the likely fate of PBDEs in the marine environment., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Dye wastewater exhibits significant ecotoxicity even though its physico-chemical parameters meet the discharge standards. In this work, the acute toxicity and genotoxicity of dye effluent were tested, and the Fenton-coagulation process was carried out to detoxify this dye effluent. The acute toxicity was evaluated according to the mortality rate of zebrafish, and genotoxicity was evaluated by micronucleus (MN) and comet assays. Removal of color and chemical oxygen demand (COD) was also investigated. The results indicated that the dye effluent showed strong acute toxicity and genotoxicity to zebrafish. After 4h of treatment by Fenton-coagulation process, the dye effluent exhibited no significant acute toxicity and genotoxicity to zebrafish. In addition, its COD was less than 50mg/L, which met the discharge standard. It demonstrates that Fenton-coagulation process can comprehensively reduce the acute toxicity and genotoxicity as well as the COD of the dye effluent., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs), which are considered to be promising candidates for the adsorption of toxic organics, are released into aqueous environment with their increasing production and application. In this study, the adsorption behaviors of five structurally related ionizable organic contaminants namely perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctanesulfonamide (PFOSA), 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 4-n-nonylphenol (4-NP) onto MWNTs with different oxygen contents (3.84-22.85%) were investigated. The adsorption kinetics was investigated and simulated with pseudo-second-order model. The adsorption isotherms were found to be fitted with Freundlich model and influenced by both the properties of organic chemicals and the oxygen contents of MWNTs. As adsorption capacity decreases dramatically with the increasing of oxygen contents, the MWNTs with the lowest oxygen contents possess the highest adsorption capacity among four MWNTs. For the MWNTs with the oxygen contents of 3.84%, the adsorption affinity related with hydrophobic interaction and π-electron polarizability decreased in the order of 4-NP>PFOSA>PFOS>2,4-D>PFOA. Furthermore, the adsorption characters of five contaminants were affected by solution pH and solute pK(a) considering electrostatic repulse force and hydrogen bonding, which showed the adsorption of MWNTs with lower oxygen content is much sensitive to solution chemistry., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The silicon-doped BiVO(4) film was fabricated by modified metalorganic decomposition (MOD) method. XRD analysis indicated that the crystal size of the BiVO(4) film was decreased from 32.4nm to 23.9nm by doping Si. The measurements of FT-IR spectra and the water contact angle showed that doping Si could elevate the surface hydrophilicity of the BiVO(4) film. The phenol elimination rate on the Si-doped BiVO(4) film electrode in the photoelectrocatalytic process was 1.84 times as great as that on the BiVO(4) film electrode. The enhanced photoelectrocatalytic performance was attributed to the decrease of the crystalline size and the enhancement of the hydrophilic performance., (Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Ag particles were doped on BiVO(4) film by photoreduction technique. XRD analysis indicated that the chemical state of the Ag particles was metallic Ag. TEM observation confirmed that the sizes of the Ag particles were 10-20nm. The investigation of the phenol degradation demonstrated that the photocatalytic (PC) degradation rate of the phenol on the Ag doped BiVO(4) film was enhanced by 1.61 times in PC process and by 42.7 times in photoelectrocatalytic (PEC) process compared with that of the BiVO(4) film. The transportation of the electrons from the BiVO(4) to Ag driven by the schottky barrier formed between Ag and BiVO(4) can increase the charge carrier separation, and consequently enhance the PC performance. The enhancement of the PC ability in PEC process could be attributed to the simultaneous movements of the photogenerated electrons to external circuit and the photogenerated holes to the Ag particles deposited on the BiVO(4) film. In 4h, the elimination efficiency and the TOC removal efficiency of phenol on the Ag doped BiVO(4) film in PEC process were 94.1% and 61.0%, respectively.

Catalytic wet air oxidation (CWAO) is a promising method for the treatment of heavily contaminated wastewater. However, its application is restricted due to severe operation conditions (high pressure and high temperature). A microwave (MW) assisted oxidation method was investigated aiming to treat heavily contaminated wastewater under milder conditions. H-acid (1-amino-8-naphthol-3, 6-disulfonic acid) was selected as target compound to evaluate the performance of this novel process. The removal of H-acid and TOC (total organic carbon) for H-acid solution of 3000 mg/L reached as high as 92.6% in 20 min and 84.2% in 60 min, respectively under optimal conditions. The existence of activated carbon and oxygen proved to be critical for effective treatment. The activated carbon acted not only as a catalyst for H-acid decomposition, but also as a special material for the absorption of MW energy. Air was supplied to the reactor as an oxygen source at constant flows. The amino group in H-acid was converted ultimately into nitrate, and sulfonic group into sulfate. This observation gave an evidence of H-acid mineralization although other organic intermediates were unable to be determined. The value of BOD(5)/COD (ratio of 5d biochemical oxygen demand to chemical oxygen demand) increased from 0.008 to 0.467 indicating a significant improvement of biodegradability for the solution, which is beneficial for the further biological treatment of the wastewater.