Long-term effects of titanium dioxide nanoparticles on nitrogen and phosphorus removal from wastewater and bacterial community shift in activated sludge.

The expanding use of titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO(2) NPs) in a wide range of fields raises concerns about their potential environmental impacts. However, investigations of the potential effects of TiO(2) NPs on biological nitrogen and phosphorus removal and bacterial community in activated sludge are sparse. This study evaluated the influences of TiO(2) NPs on biological nutrient removal in the anaerobic-low dissolved oxygen (0.15-0.50 mg/L) sequencing batch reactor. It was found that 1 and 50 mg/L TiO(2) NPs had no acute effects on wastewater nitrogen and phosphorus removal after short-term exposure (1 day). However, 50 mg/L TiO(2) NPs (higher than its environmentally relevant concentration) was observed to significantly decrease total nitrogen (TN) removal efficiency from 80.3% to 24.4% after long-term exposure (70 days), whereas biological phosphorus removal was unaffected. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis profiles showed that 50 mg/L TiO(2) NPs obviously reduced the diversity of microbial community in activated sludge, and fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis indicated that the abundance of nitrifying bacteria, especially ammonia-oxidizing bacteria, was highly decreased after long-term exposure to 50 mg/L TiO(2) NPs, which was the main reason for the serious deterioration of ammonia oxidation. Further study revealed that 50 mg/L TiO(2) NPs inhibited the activities of ammonia monooxygenase and nitrite oxidoreductase after long-term exposure, but had no significant impacts on the activities of exopolyphosphatase and polyphosphate kinase, and the transformations of intracellular polyhydroxyalkanoates and glycogen, which were consistent with the observed influences of TiO(2) NPs on biological nitrogen and phosphorus removal.