Abstract
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are novel materials with growing commercial application due to their unique properties. With the discharge of CNTs to wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) predicted to increase, it is very important to investigate the impact of CNTs on biological processes and microbial biomass in WWTPs. This study investigated the inhibition of anaerobic biological sulfate reduction processes in sludge biomass exposed to multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). The effects of MWCNTs on co-substrate oxidation and sulfate reduction as well as their interaction with sludge biomass were studied. Batch studies were performed by exposing mixed sulfate reducing bacteria culture to increasing MWCNTs concentrations up to 100 mg/L. At 5 mg/L, MWCNTs caused no considerable inhibition of sulfate and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal. However, higher MWCNTs concentrations drastically inhibited the COD removal as compared to sulfate removal. Increasing concentrations of MWCNTs from 0 to 100 mg/L decreased the sulfate and COD removal efficiencies from 60.4% and 98.0%, to 39.7% and 88.3%, respectively. The effects of MWCNTs on sludge biomass were revealed by lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release assay and field emissionscanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) images.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 485-489 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Journal of Nanoelectronics and Optoelectronics |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1 Aug 2015 |
Keywords
- Inhibition
- Lactate dehydrogenase release assay
- Multi-walled carbon nanotubes
- Sludge biomass
- Sulfate reduction process