Performance and Bacteria Communities of a Full-Scale Constructed Wetland Treating the Secondary Effluent after Multi-Years’ Operation

Abstract

Constructed wetlands (CWs) had been widely used to treat the tailwater from sewage treatment plants. However, the enduring effectiveness of CWs was still unclear. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the chemical oxygen demand (COD), ammonia nitrogen (NH4+-N), and total phosphorus (TP) removal efficiencies (RE) of the Hongze CW (HZ-CW) after multi-years’ operation. The average COD RE were 7.6% and 15.14% in the 4th and 5th year, respectively. The NH4+-N RE was 78.33% and 46.04% in the 4th and 5th year, respectively, while the TP RE remained high at 66.86% and 64.68%. The high-throughput sequencing analysis revealed that the bacterial community of HZ-CW at the end of the 5th year exhibited a substantial abundance and diversity, and Proteobacteria and Bacteroidota were the dominant phyla with a relative abundance of 33.75–71.8% and 11.28–24.53% in different zones of HZ-CW. Ammonia oxidizing organisms (AOMs) presented much higher relative abundance (0.43–0.79%) in aerated pond (AP) and four free water surface flow CWs (FWS1–FWS4) than those of anammox bacteria, indicating the dominant role of nitrification in NH4+-N removal.

Response of Nitrogen Removal Performance and Microbial Distribution to Seasonal Shock Nutrients Load in a Lakeshore Multicell Constructed Wetland

“…Processes 2023, 11, 2781 2 of 16 In addition, the greater water depths in the cells of MCWs contribute to storing and purifying wastewater because there is more space without increasing the land source of MCW systems [9]. Li et al [10] studied 63 MCWs grouped into four kinds depending on various water depths and treatment processes, and the maximum nitrogen removal efficiency was 63.7%.…”

“…Numerous studies have demonstrated that assimilation and storage by plants and microbes serve as the primary nitrogen removal pathways in MCWs [5,[16][17][18]. The microbial nitrogen cycle within CWs is driven by nitrogen-related microorganisms, such as heterotrophic denitrification genera, facultative autotrophic denitrification genera, autotrophic denitrification genera, anaerobic ammonium oxidation genera, and nitrification genera [9,19].…”