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Mechanisms of emerging pollutant Dechlorane Plus on the production of short-chain fatty acids from sludge anaerobic fermentation

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Abstract

The effect of emerging pollutant Dechlorane Plus (DPs), an organochlorine aliphatic flame retardant, on waste-activated sludge anaerobic fermentation was investigated, and the related mechanisms were revealed for the first time. The results of this experiment suggested that the presence of DPs had a significant inhibitory effect on sludge anaerobic fermentation to generate the intermediate valuable product short-chain fatty acids (SCFA), and when the DP content was 3034.1±101.7 mg/kg total suspended solids (TSS), the maximal output of SCFA was only 215.04 mg/g, which was 0.47 times of that in the blank. The underlying mechanism investigation indicated DPs promoted the disintegration of sludge, but inhibited the process of hydrolysis and acidification. DPs inhibited the release of soluble bound extracellular polymers (SB-EPS) in sludge. The analysis of microbial community characteristics indicated that DPs reduced the level of Firmicutes and Actinobacteriathe, which were the key acid producing bacteria. At the genus level, DPs reduced the relative abundance of Proteiniclasticum and Mycobacteriumwas.

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Funding

This work was financially supported by the project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (no. 51908305; 51978350), Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Biotransformation of Organic Solid Waste (SERC2020C05).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental and Municipal Engineering, Qingdao University of Technology, Qingdao, 266033, People’s Republic of China

    Jing Zhang, Jianwei Zhao, Yingjie Sun, Mingxue Xin, Dalei Zhang & Rongxing Bian

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  1. Jing Zhang
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  5. Dalei Zhang
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Contributions

Jing Zhang: conceptualization, writing- original draft, writing - review and editing. Jianwei Zhao: investigation, validation, writing - review and editing. Yingjie Sun: funding acquisition, writing - review and editing. Mingxue Xin: writing - review and editing. Dalei Zhang: investigation, validation. Rongxing Bian: methodology, supervision.

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Correspondence to Jianwei Zhao.

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Zhang, J., Zhao, J., Sun, Y. et al. Mechanisms of emerging pollutant Dechlorane Plus on the production of short-chain fatty acids from sludge anaerobic fermentation. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 34902–34912 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13101-7

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