RESUMEN
Excess nitrogen in stormwater degrades surface water quality via eutrophication and related processes. Bioretention has been recognized as a highly effective low-impact development (LID) technology for the management of high runoff volumes and reduction of nitrogen (N) pollutants through various mechanisms. This paper provides a comprehensive and critical review of recent developments on the biological N removal processes occurring in bioretention systems. The key plant- and microbe-mediated N transformation processes include assimilation (N uptake by plants and microbes), nitrification, denitrification, and anammox (anaerobic ammonia oxidation), but denitrification is the major pathway of permanent N removal. Overall, both laboratory- and field-scale bioretention systems have demonstrated promising N removal performance (TN: >70%). The phyla Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria are the most abundant microbial communities found to be enriched in biofilter media. Furthermore, the denitrifying communities contain several functional genes (e.g., nirK/nirS, and nosZ), and their concentrations increase near the surface of media depth. The N removal effectiveness of bioretention systems is largely impacted by the hydraulics and environmental factors. When a bioretention system operates at: low hydraulic/N loading rate, containing a saturation zone, vegetated with native plants, having deeper and multilayer biofilter media with warm climate temperature and wet storm events periods, the N removal efficiency can be high. This review highlights shortcomings and current knowledge gaps in the area of total nitrogen removal using bioretention systems, as well as identifies future research directions on this topic.
Asunto(s)
Desnitrificación , Nitrógeno , Nitrificación , Nitrógeno/metabolismo , Plantas/metabolismo , LluviaRESUMEN
Biochar has been increasingly used as a filter medium in engineered low impact development systems (e.g., bioretention systems) for decontamination of urban stormwater and management of hydrology. This review paper critically analyzes the performance of biochar-based biofiltration systems for removal of chemical and microbial pollutants present in urban runoff. Biochar-amended biofiltration systems efficiently remove diverse pollutants such as total nitrogen (32 - 61%), total phosphorus: (45 - 94%), heavy metals (27 - 100%), organics (54 - 100%) and microbial pollutants (log10 removal: 0.78 - 4.23) from urban runoff. The variation of biofiltration performance is due to changes in biochar characteristics, the abundance of dissolved organic matter and/or stormwater chemistry. The dominant mechanisms responsible for removal of chemical pollutants are sorption, ion exchange and/or biotransformation, whereas filtration/straining is the major mechanism for bacteria removal. The pseudo-second order and Langmuir isotherm are the best models that describe the kinetics and chemical equilibrium of pollutants, respectively. This critical review provides the fundamental scientific knowledge for designing highly efficient biochar-based bioretention systems for removal of diverse pollutants from urban stormwater. The key knowledge gaps that should be addressed in future research include long-term field-scale bioretention study, development of novel methods for filter media regeneration/reuse, and dynamics of filter media microbial communities.
Asunto(s)
Contaminantes Ambientales , Carbón Orgánico , Materia Orgánica Disuelta , LluviaRESUMEN
Bioretention is a popular stormwater management strategy that is often utilized in urban environments to combat water quality and hydrological impacts of stormwater. This goal is achieved by selective designing of a system, which consists of suitable vegetation at the top planted on an engineered media with drainage system and possible underdrain at the bottom. Bibliometric analysis on bioretention studies indicates that most of the original research contributions are derived from a few countries and selected research groups. Hence, most of the bioretention systems installed in diverse geographical locations are based on guidelines from climatically different countries, which often lead to operational failures. The current review critically analyzes recent research findings from the bioretention literature, provides the authors' perspectives on the current state of knowledge, highlights the key knowledge gaps in bioretention research, and points out future research directions to make further advances in the field. Specifically, the role and desired features of bioretention components, the importance of fundamental investigations in laboratory, field-based studies and modeling efforts, the real-time process control of bioretention cells, bioretention system design considerations, and life cycle assessment of full-scale bioretention systems are discussed. The importance of local conditions in guiding bioretention designs in difference climates is emphasized. At the end of the review, current technical challenges are identified and recommendations to overcome them are provided. This comprehensive review not only offers fundamental insights into bioretention technology, but also provides novel ideas to combat issues related to urban runoff and achieve sustainable stormwater management.
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Lluvia , Calidad del Agua , Plantas , Movimientos del AguaRESUMEN
We developed biochar by pyrolysis of pinewood wastes at different temperatures and investigated its potential to nitrate and phosphate from single and binary solutions. An in-depth characterization of biochar was carried out to study its physical, surface morphological and chemical characteristics using X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared and scanning electron microscopy analyses. The impact of pyrolysis temperatures (300-600 °C) on the biochar yield, the biochar's elemental composition, and its adsorption characteristics was examined. Biochar produced at 600 °C showed a maximum uptake for both nitrate and phosphate due to its high C content (63.8%), pore volume (0.201 cm3/g), surface area (204.2 m2/g) and reduced acidic binding groups. The influence of pH, initial solute concentrations, contact time on the removal of a single solute at a time by biochar was examined. Results revealed that pinewood-derived biochar had its maximum performance at pH 2, with predicted equilibrium uptakes of 20.5 and 4.20 mg/g for phosphate and nitrate, respectively at initial solute concentrations of 60 mg/L within 360 min. The single solute isotherm was studied using the Freundlich, Langmuir and Toth models, and kinetics was described using the pseudo-first and -second order models. While using dual-solutes, biochar showed preference towards phosphate as confirmed by high affinity factor. The dual-solute kinetic experiments showed that around 95% of phosphate was removed within 45 min, whereas it took 240 min to achieve 95% total nitrate removal from the mixture. Thus, the biochar removes phosphate preferentially with high selectivity as compared to nitrate.
Asunto(s)
Pinus , Contaminantes Químicos del Agua , Adsorción , Carbón Orgánico , Concentración de Iones de Hidrógeno , Cinética , Nitratos , Fosfatos , Soluciones , Espectroscopía Infrarroja por Transformada de Fourier , Contaminantes Químicos del Agua/análisisRESUMEN
Street dust serves as an important archive for environmental contamination in industrialized countries. Heavy metals which are found in street dust such as Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn cause pollution in different environmental media. This study was carried out to characterize the composition of different elements embedded in street dusts and to investigate their leaching behavior in the presence of different aqueous media. Samples of street dusts were collected on a weekly basis for 6 months from three different locations in Singapore, viz. residential, commercial and industrial areas, and processed in the laboratory to determine the concentration of 13 elements (Al, As, Co, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, Ti, V, and Zn). Concentrations showed considerable variations between sites, and within the same site over a period of time. Dust samples collected from the industrial area were of serious concern as they comprise elevated concentrations of most of the potentially toxic metals such as Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb, and Zn. The surface morphology and presence of different elements in street dust samples were confirmed using SEM/EDX analysis. The enrichment factor, used to describe the chemical characteristics of street dusts, revealed that most of the elements have anthropogenic origin. Of the different media used in dissolution of elements from street dusts, the river water and acidified deionized (DI) water (0.01 M HNO(3)) were found to promote significant leaching of most of the elements. With the aid of dissolution kinetic data, the rate constants of dissolution of various elements were determined.
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Contaminantes Atmosféricos/química , Polvo/análisis , Metales Pesados/análisis , Contaminantes Atmosféricos/análisis , Monitoreo del Ambiente , Cinética , Metales Pesados/química , Microscopía Electrónica de Rastreo , Espectrometría por Rayos XRESUMEN
Ionic liquids (ILs) are low-melting organic salts that are being researched intensively as possible environmentally friendly replacements for volatile organic solvents. Despite their nonmeasurable vapor pressure, some quantities of ILs soon will be present in effluent discharges because solubility of ILs in water is small, but far from negligible. Therefore, it is important to understand how ILs will influence aquatic ecosystems. In the present study, the toxic effects of imidazolium-based ILs (1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium cation associated with bromide [BMIM] [Br] and tetrafluoroborate [BMIM] [BF4]) to the freshwater green alga Selenastrum capricornutum were investigated. Two approaches were followed to quantify toxicity of these compounds: Analyses of photosynthetic activity and cell proliferation. The obtained data showed that the relative declines of growth rates generally were more pronounced than those of photosynthetic activity. The ecotoxicity of a range of common organic solvents also was examined. It was revealed that both imidazolium-based ILs studied were some orders of magnitude more toxic than methanol, isopropanol, and dimethylformamide. In addition, with respect to IL incorporating perfluorinated anion, EC50 values (concentrations which lead to a 50% reduction of the exposed organisms relative to control) of the previously prepared stock solution were significantly lower compared to those of the freshly made one. This might be due to hydrolytic effects of [BMIM][BF4] leading to fluoride formation, which was confirmed by ion chromatography analysis. This indicates that, after ILs are discharged into the aqueous system, they can become more toxic than expected by laboratory data with fresh ILs.
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Boratos/toxicidad , Chlorophyta/efectos de los fármacos , Chlorophyta/crecimiento & desarrollo , Imidazoles/toxicidad , Líquidos Iónicos/toxicidad , Técnicas Biosensibles/instrumentación , Técnicas Biosensibles/métodos , Boratos/análisis , Proliferación Celular/efectos de los fármacos , Chlorophyta/citología , Relación Dosis-Respuesta a Droga , Ecosistema , Imidazoles/análisis , Líquidos Iónicos/química , Fotosíntesis/efectos de los fármacos , Reproducibilidad de los Resultados , Sensibilidad y Especificidad , Factores de Tiempo , Pruebas de ToxicidadRESUMEN
The batch removal of copper (II) ions from aqueous solution under different experimental conditions using Ulva reticulata was investigated in this study. The copper (II) uptake was dependent on initial pH and initial copper concentration, with pH 5.5 being the optimum value. The equilibrium data were fitted using Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm model, with the maximum copper (II) uptake of 74.63 mg/g determined at a pH of 5.5. The Freundlich model regression resulted in high correlation coefficients and the model parameters were largely dependent on initial solution pH. At various initial copper (II) concentrations (250 to 1000 mg/L), sorption equilibrium was attained between 30 and 120 min. The copper (II) uptake by U. reticulata was best described by Pseudo-second order rate model and the rate constant, the initial sorption rate and the equilibrium sorption capacity were also reported. The elution efficiency for copper-desorption from U. reticulata was determined for 0.1 M HCl, H2SO4, HNO3 and CaCl2 at various Solid-to-Liquid ratios (S/L). The solution CaCl2 (0.1 M) in HCl at pH 3 was chosen to be the most suitable copper-desorbing agent. The biomass was also employed in three sorption-desorption cycles with 0.1 M CaCl2 (in HCl, pH 3) as the elutant.