Migration of Biodegradable Organic Matter in Underlying Soils of Household Waste Dumpsites: A Case Study in Abomey-Calavi, Benin

This paper presented the first part of the studies about the development of a tool for groundwater contamination prediction, conducted by the Laboratory of Sciences and Technology of Water (UAC/Benin). The investigation made consisted in estimating the combined effect of retardation factor and biodegradation on migration processes of leachate, in the underlying soils of household waste dumpsites, without active safety barrier. Leachate infiltration tests for different initial conditions were made on soil columns and the breakthrough curves were traced for electrical conductivity, the 5 day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) and total kjeldahl nitrogen TKN. A mathematical migration model was developed and solved numerically by finite difference method and implemented with Matlab R2013a. Thus, the calibration of the model was made with electric conductivity data by determining the dispersion coefficient of the studied soils (D = 0.96 cm2/min). Simulations for model verification showed that the established model can perfectly predict the migration of biodegradable organic pollution (BOD5) but did not give conclusive results for the monitoring of nitrogenous organic matter (TKN). The influence of the retardation factor on the migration of biodegradable organic pollutants in soils was linear, while the biodegradation rate of the organic material on migration showed an exponential pattern.

Enhancing sensitivity of microbial fuel cell sensors for low concentration biodegradable organic matter detection:Regulation of substrate concentration,anode area and external resistance

The relatively low sensitivity is an important reason for restricting the microbial fuel cell(MFC)sensors'application in low concentration biodegradable organic matter(BOM)detection.The startup parameters,including substrate concentration,anode area and external resistance,were regulated to enhance the sensitivity of MFC sensors.The results demonstrated that both the substrate concentration and anode area were positively correlated with the sensitivity of MFC sensors,and an external resistance of 210Ωwas found to be optimal in terms of sensitivity of MFC sensors.Optimized MFC sensors had lower detection limit(1 mg/L)and higher sensitivity(Slope value of the linear regression curve was 1.02),which effectively overcome the limitation of low concentration BOM detection.The essential reason is that optimized MFC sensors had higher coulombic efficiency,which was beneficial to improve the sensitivity of MFC sensors.The main impact of the substrate concentration and anode area was to regulate the proportion between electrogens and nonelectrogens,biomass and living cells of the anode biofilm.The external resistance mainly affected the morphology structure and the proportion of living cells of the anode.This study demonstrated an effective way to improve the sensitivity of MFC sensors for low concentration BOM detection.

Risk Modelling of Organic Pollution in Lake Sediments

A risk situation of organic pollutants accumulation in the sediments of the dams from Cascade “Middle Iskar” (NW Bulgaria) is simulated in the present study. The aim is risk modelling of organic pollution in lake sediments and on base of the investigated key chemical and enzymological parameters to risk assessment. A model process in lab scale with addition of whey as a source of organic pollutants was simulated. Two situations near to real conditions were studied: 1) at a decreased concentration of organic pollutants (chemical oxygen demand was 0.265 gO2.kg-1) in the case of discharge of sediments downstream of the river (control situation);2) at an accumulation of organic pollutants (chemical oxygen demand was 1.463 gO2.kg-1) in the sediments (risk event). The dynamics of chemical oxygen demand (COD), concentration of proteins and lactose as well as of the key enzymological indicators (phosphatase activity index—PAI, anaerobic dehydrogenase activity, protease and ?-galactosidase activities) were investigated. The data from Risk Assessment showed that there is a hazard from higher protein concentration at the end of the process in comparison with the control situation. The risk about COD and lactose concentration during the risk modelling was acceptable. The obtained results showed that the PAI can be used as an indicator for early warning of the organic pollution with protein nature.

Biodegradable dissolved organic carbon shapes bacterial community structures and co-occurrence patterns in large eutrophic Lake Taihu

Interactions between dissolved organic matter(DOM)and bacteria are central in the biogeochemical cycles of aquatic ecosystems;however,the relative importance of biodegradable dissolved organic carbon(BDOC)compared with other environmental variables in structuring the bacterial communities needs further investigation.Here,we investigated bacterial communities,chromophoric DOM(CDOM)characteristics and physico-chemical parameters as well as examined BDOC via bioassay incubations in large eutrophic Lake Taihu,China,to explore the importance of BDOC for shaping bacterial community structures and co-occurrence patterns.We found that the proportion of BDOC(%BDOC)correlated significantly and positively with the DOC concentration and the index of the contribution of recent produced autochthonous CDOM(BIX).%BDOC,further correlated positively with the relative abundance of the tryptophan-like component and negatively with CDOM aromaticity,indicating that autochthonous production of protein-like CDOM was an important source of BDOC.The richness of the bacterial communities correlated negatively with%BDOC,indicating an enhanced number of species in the refractory DOC environments.%BDOC was identified as a significant stronger factor than DOC in shaping bacterial community composition and the co-occurrence network,suggesting that substrate biodegradability is more significant than DOC quantity determining the bacterial communities in a eutrophic lake.Environmental factors explained a larger proportion of the variation in the conditionally rare and abundant subcommunity than for the abundant and the rare bacterial subcommunities.Our findings emphasize the importance of considering bacteria with different abundance patterns and DOC biodegradability when studying the interactions between DOM and bacteria in eutrophic lakes.

Bioavailability of wastewater derived dissolved organic nitrogen to green microalgae Selenastrum capricornutum,Chlamydomonas reinhardtii,and Chlorella vulgaris with/without presence of bacteria

Effluent dissolved organic nitrogen（DON） is problematic in nutrient sensitive surface waters and needs to be reduced to meet demanding total dissolved nitrogen discharge limits.Bioavailable DON（ABDON） is a portion of DON utilized by algae or algae ＋ bacteria,while biodegradable DON（BDON） is a portion of DON decomposable by bacteria.ABDON and BDON in a two-stage trickling filter（TF） wastewater treatment plant was evaluated using three different microalgal species,Selenastrum capricornutum,Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and Chlorella vulgaris and mixed cultured bacteria.Results showed that up to80% of DON was bioavailable to algae or algae ＋ bacteria inoculum while up to 60% of DON was biodegradable in all the samples.Results showed that C.reinhardtii and C.vulgaris can be used as a test species the same as S.capricornutum since there were no significant differences among these three algae species based on their ability to remove nitrogen species.

Effects of Cu^(2+)and humic acids on degradation and fate of TBBPA in pure culture of Pseudomonas sp.strain CDT

Soil contamination with tetrabromobisphenol A（TBBPA） has caused great concerns;however, the presence of heavy metals and soil organic matter on the biodegradation of TBBPA is still unclear. We isolated Pseudomonas sp. strain CDT, a TBBPA-degrading bacterium, from activated sludge and incubated it with ^（14）C-labeled TBBPA for 87 days in the absence and presence of Cu^（2＋）and humic acids（HA）. TBBPA was degraded to organic-solvent extractable（59.4% ± 2.2%） and non-extractable（25.1% ± 1.3%） metabolites,mineralized to CO_2（4.8% ± 0.8%）, and assimilated into cells（10.6% ± 0.9%） at the end of incubation. When Cu^（2＋）was present, the transformation of extractable metabolites into non-extractable metabolites and mineralization were inhibited, possibly due to the toxicity of Cu^（2＋）to cells. HA significantly inhibited both dissipation and mineralization of TBBPA and altered the fate of TBBPA in the culture by formation of HA-bound residues that amounted to 22.1% ± 3.7% of the transformed TBBPA. The inhibition from HA was attributed to adsorption of TBBPA and formation of bound residues with HA via reaction of reactive metabolites with HA molecules, which decreased bioavailability of TBBPA and metabolites in the culture. When Cu^（2＋）and HA were both present, Cu^（2＋）significantly promoted the HA inhibition on TBBPA dissipation but not on metabolite degradation. The results provide insights into individual and interactive effects of Cu^（2＋）and soil organic matter on the biotransformation of TBBPA and indicate that soil organic matter plays an essential role in determining the fate of organic pollutants in soil and mitigating heavy metal toxicity.