Accelerating Microbial Activity of Soil Aquifer Treatment by Hydrogen Peroxide

Liron Friedman, Kartik Chandran, Dror Avisar, Edris Taher, Amanda Kirchmaier-Hurpia and Hadas Mamane
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Liron Friedman: Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
Kartik Chandran: Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
Dror Avisar: Hydrochemistry Lab, Water Research Center, Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
Edris Taher: Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
Amanda Kirchmaier-Hurpia: Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
Hadas Mamane: Environmental Engineering Program, School of Mechanical Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 11, 1-14

Abstract: Soil aquifer treatment (SAT), as a gravity-based wastewater reuse process, is limited by oxygen availability to the microbial community in the soil. Using oxygen from enzymatic degradation of H 2 O 2 to generate hyper-oxygen conditions can exceed solubility limitations associated with aeration, but little is known about the effect of hyper-oxygen conditions on the microbial community and the dominant bio-reactions. This study examined the impact of H 2 O 2 addition on the community structure and process performance, along with SAT depth. Overall, two soil columns were incrementally fed synthetic secondary effluents to simulate infiltration through SAT. The experimental column received 14 mg/L hydrogen peroxide to double the level of natural oxygen available. The microbial kinetics of nitrifiers and heterotrophs were evaluated. We found that all of the H 2 O 2 was degraded within the top 10 cm of the column, accompanied by a higher removal of COD (23 ± 0.25%) and ammonia (31 ± 3%) in comparison to the reference column. Higher nitrogen removal (23 ± 0.04%) was obtained for the whole process using H 2 O 2 . Analysis of nitrifiers indicated that ammonia-oxidizing bacteria were most influenced, obtaining higher concentration and abundance when exposed to H 2 O 2 . DNA sequencing analysis of samples exposed to H 2 O 2 revealed significant community structure and diversity differences among heterotrophs. This study shows that not only aerobic, but also anoxic, microbial activity and process performance in a SAT system could be accelerated in existing infrastructure with H 2 O 2 , which could significantly decrease the associated environmental footprint.

Keywords: soil aquifer treatment; hydrogen peroxide; nitrification; denitrification; anoxic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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