As one of the transition metals, vanadium（V）（V（V）） in trace amounts represents an essential element for normal cell growth, but becomes toxic when its concentration is above 1 mg/L. V（V） can alter cellular differentiation, gene expression, and other biochemical and metabolic phenomena. A feasible method to detoxify V（V） is to reduce it to V（IV）, which precipitates and can be readily removed from the water. The bioreduction of V（V） in a contaminated groundwater was investigated using autohydrogentrophic bacteria and hydrogen gas as the electron donor. Compared with the previous organic donors,H2 shows the advantages as an ideal electron donor, including nontoxicity and less production of excess biomass. V（V） was 95.5% removed by biochemical reduction when autohydrogentrophic bacteria and hydrogen were both present, and the reduced V（IV）precipitated, leading to total-V removal. Reduction kinetics could be described by a first-order model and were sensitive to p H and temperature, with the optimum ranges of p H 7.5–8.0 and 35–40°C, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis by clone library showed that the dominant species in the experiments with V（V） bioreduction belonged to theβ-Proteobacteria. Previously known V（V）-reducing species were absent, suggesting that V（V）reduction was carried out by novel species. Their selective enrichment during V（V）bioreduction suggests that Rhodocyclus, a denitrifying bacterium, and Clostridium, a fermenter known to carry out metal reduction, were responsible for V（V） bioreduction.
The study aims to identify the potential acute effects of suspended aluminum nitride（Al N）nanoparticles（NPs） on soluble microbial products（SMP） of activated sludge.Cultured activated sludge loaded with 1,10,50,100,150 and 200 mg/L of Al N NPs were carried out in this study.As results showed,Al N NPs had a highly inverse proportionality to bacterial dehydrogenase and OUR,indicating its direct toxicity to the activated sludge viability.The toxicity of Al N NPs was mainly due to the nano-scale of Al N NPs.In SMP,Al N 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 Al N NPs on the bacterial metabolism.Additionally,Al N NPs reduced obviously the molecular weight of SMP,which might be due to the nano-scale of Al N.
Arsenic in the environment is attracting increasing attention due to its chronic health effects. Although arsenite （As（III）） is generally more mobile and more toxic than arsenate （As（V））, reducing As（V） to As（III） may still be a means for decontamination, because As（III） can be removed from solution by precipitation with sulfide or by adsorption or complexation with other metal sulfides. The performance of As（V） bio-reduction under autohydrogenotrophic conditions was investigated with batch experiments. The results showed that As（V） reduction was a biochemical process while both acclimated sludge and hydrogen were essential. Most of the reduced arsenic remained in a soluble form, although 20% was removed with no addition of sulfate, while 82% was removed when sulfate was reduced to sulfide. The results demonstrated that the reduced arsenic was re-sequestered in the precipitates, probably as arsenic sulfides. Kinetic analysis showed that pseudo first-order kinetics described the bio-reduction process better than pseudo second-order. In particular, the influences of pH and temperature on As（V） reduction by acclimated sludge under autohydrogenotrophic conditions and total soluble As removal were examined. The reduction process was highly sensitive to both pH and temperature, with the optimum ranges of pH 6.5-7.0 and 30-40℃ respectively. Furthermore, Arrhenius modeling results for the temperature effect indicated that the As（V） reduction trend was systematic. Total soluble As removal was consistent with the trend of As（V） reduction.
