Potential acute effects of suspended aluminum nitride (AlN) nanoparticles on soluble microbial products (SMP) of activated sludge

Lijie Zhou; Weiqin Zhuang; Xin Wang; Ke Yu; Shufang Yang; Siqing Xia

doi:10.1016/j.jes.2017.02.001

Potential acute effects of suspended aluminum nitride (AlN) nanoparticles on soluble microbial products (SMP) of activated sludge

J Environ Sci (China). 2017 Jul:57:284-292. doi: 10.1016/j.jes.2017.02.001. Epub 2017 Feb 14.

Authors

Lijie Zhou¹, Weiqin Zhuang², Xin Wang³, Ke Yu⁴, Shufang Yang⁵, Siqing Xia⁶

Affiliations

¹ State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Drinking Water Source Management and Technology, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Drinking Water Source Safety Control, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Emerging Contaminants Detection & Control in Water Environment, Shenzhen Academy of Environmental Sciences, Shenzhen 518001, China; State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai 200092, China.
² Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Auckland, Auckland 1142, New Zealand.
³ State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai 200092, China.
⁴ School of Environment and Energy, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen 518055, China.
⁵ Shenzhen Municipal Design & Research Institute Co., Ltd, 3007 West Sungang Road, Shenzhen 518029, China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai 200092, China. Electronic address: siqingxia@gmail.com.

PMID: 28647249
DOI: 10.1016/j.jes.2017.02.001

Abstract

The study aims to identify the potential acute effects of suspended aluminum nitride (AlN) nanoparticles (NPs) on soluble microbial products (SMP) of activated sludge. Cultured activated sludge loaded with 1, 10, 50, 100, 150 and 200mg/L of AlN NPs were carried out in this study. As results showed, AlN NPs had a highly inverse proportionality to bacterial dehydrogenase and OUR, indicating its direct toxicity to the activated sludge viability. The toxicity of AlN NPs was mainly due to the nano-scale of AlN NPs. In SMP, AlN NPs led to the decrease of polysaccharide and humic compounds, but had slight effects on protein. The decrease of tryptophan-like substances in SMP indicated the inhibition of AlN NPs on the bacterial metabolism. Additionally, AlN NPs reduced obviously the molecular weight of SMP, which might be due to the nano-scale of AlN.

Keywords: Activated sludge; Aluminum nitride nanoparticles; Bacterial viability; Soluble microbial products (SMP).

MeSH terms

Aluminum Compounds / toxicity*
Bioreactors / microbiology
Nanoparticles / toxicity*
Polysaccharides
Sewage / microbiology
Waste Disposal, Fluid / methods*
Water Microbiology*

Substances

Aluminum Compounds
Polysaccharides
Sewage
aluminum nitride