Effective Biological Nitrogen Removal Treatment Processes for Domestic Wastewaters with Low C/N Ratios: A Review Discharge of nitrogenous components to water bodies can cause eutrophication, deterioration of water quality, toxicity to aquatic life, and pose a potential hazard to human and animal health. Biological nitrogen removal can remove nitrogenous components via conversion to harmless nitrogen gas with high efficiency and relative low costs. However, the removal of nitrogen from domestic wastewater with a low carbon/nitrogen (C/N) ratio can often be limited in municipal wastewater plants (WWTPs) because organic carbon is a limiting factor for denitrification. The present work reviews innovative bacterial nitrogen removal pathways such as shortcut nitrification/denitrification, simultaneous nitrification/denitrification, and the nitritation Anammox process, which can remove nitrogen with low or zero dosage of organic carbon sources. We conclude that advanced process control and some new biological treatment processes including the modified anaerobic/anoxic/oxic (A(2)/O) process, the step-feed multistage anaerobic/ oxic (A/O) process, and new reactors like the membrane bioreactors (MBRs) and the membrane-aerated biofilm reactors (MABRs) can support the innovative biological nitrogen removal pathways. They can effectively be used for nitrogen removal from low C/N domestic wastewater without external carbon addition. In addition, conventional and alternative carbon sources for enhanced biological nitrogen removal were also reviewed. We conclude that alternative carbon sources such as wine distillery effluent, the leachate of food waste, digested piggery manure, hydrolyzed molasses, biologically hydrolyzed or mechanically disintegrated sludge offer the same or better performance for nitrogen removal at reduced costs. Finally, we suggest that (1) these new processes and technologies are implemented at large scale for nitrogen removal from low C/N domestic wastewater, (2) further method logic are explored to introduce the Anammox pathway into domestic wastewater treatment, and (3) alternative carbon sources are explored and optimized for supporting the denitrification. With these efforts, cost-effective nitrogen removal from low C/N ratio domestic wastewater can be obtained in the near future.

Selective removal of organic pollutants by advanced oxidation methods has been receiving increasing attention for environmental remediation. In this study, a novel catalyst, which can selectively oxidize phenolic compounds (PCs) based on their hydrophobicity, composed of metal–organic-framework-derived Fe/Fe3O4 and three-dimensional reduced graphene oxide (rGOF) is designed for peroxydisulfate (PDS) activation. This heterogeneous PDS activation system can completely degrade hydrophobic PCs within 30 min. By investigating the hydrophobic properties of eight representative PCs, a positive correlation between the hydrophobicity of PC and the reaction kinetics is reported for the first time. The selective removal stems from the strong interaction between highly hydrophobic PCs and the catalyst. Moreover, the mechanism investigation shows that the degradation reaction is triggered by interface reactive oxygen species (ROS). Our study reveals that the selective degradation of organic pollutants by PDS activation depends on the hydrophilic and hydrophobic properties of the pollutant and catalyst. The reported results provide new insights into a highly selective and efficient PDS activation system for organic pollutant removal.

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