Facilitated biological reduction of nitroaromatic compounds by reduced graphene oxide and the role of its surface characteristics

Abstract

How reduced graphene oxide (RGO) mediates the reductive transformation of nitroaromatic pollutants by mixed cultures and the role of its surface characteristics were evaluated in this study. Different electron donors were applied to investigate the interaction between RGO and anaerobic microbes. Moreover, the influence of the surface properties of RGO on biological nitroaromatic removal was further elucidated. The results show that RGO could achieve an approximate one-fold rate increase of nitrobenzene reduction by mixed culture with glucose as an electron donor. Selective elimination of oxygen moieties on the RGO surface, such as quinone groups, decreased the nitrobenzene transformation rate, whereas doping nitrogen into the RGO framework exhibited a positive effect. The study indicates that graphene-based carbon nanomaterials have the potential to accelerate the biological transformation of nitroaromatic compounds and that the functionalization of these carbon nanomaterials, especially through surface modification, would further enhance the conversion efficiency of contaminants.

Novel application of magnetic nano-carbon composite as redox mediator in the reductive biodegradation of iopromide in anaerobic continuous systems

“…Graphene oxide (GO) and its partially reduced materials (RGO) have also been used as electron shuttles to promote the transformation of recalcitrant pollutants due to the redox activity of quinone groups present in their chemical surface, and to their superior catalytic activity in the zigzag edges of graphene sheets (Jiang et al 2007), which favor the reductive transformation of these compounds (Cervantes et al 2000; Pereira et al 2014). For example, the redox properties of GO and RGO have been explored in the degradation of environmental pollutants like azo dyes (Lu et al 2014; Colunga et al 2015), nitro-compounds (Gao et al 2011; Fu and Zhu 2013; Wang et al 2014; Oh et al 2014; Li et al 2016a) and polyhalogenated organics (Fu et al 2014). These studies indicate a feasible opportunity to apply graphene-based materials as redox catalysts in the reductive degradation of emerging contaminants.…”

Anaerobic biodegradation of fluoxetine using a high-performance bacterial community

“…The genus vadinBC27 wastewater-sludge group was found for the first time in a vinasse anaerobic digester [64]. The genera vadinBC27 wastewater-sludge group together with Desulfovibrio, Enterobacter and Desulfobulbus could contribute to the decomposition of hardly-degradable organic pollutants in landfill leachate [65], such as nitroaromatic pollutants reducing nitroaromatics to the corresponding aromatic amines [66]. However, in addition to this information nothing more is found in the literature about the genus vadinBC27 wastewater-sludge group, but since its capacity to degrade aromatic compounds was already reported, this genus could be one of the major responsible for FLX decomposition at 20 mg/L FLX.…”

Progress and prospects of applying carbon‐based materials (and nanomaterials) to accelerate anaerobic bioprocesses for the removal of micropollutants

“…GNS were applied as RM in the biological reduction of the azo dye RR2 (Colunga et al, 2015), of the pharmaceutical iopromide (IOP) (Toral-S anchez et al, 2016(Toral-S anchez et al, , 2017 and of nitrobenzene (Wang et al, 2014;Li et al, 2016). In the work of Colunga et al (2015), the rate of RR2 biological reduction was accelerated by 0.005 g l -1 of GO: twofold, under methanogenic, and 3.6-fold, under sulfate-reducing conditions (Table 1).…”