A comparative study of aeration, biostimulation and bioaugmentation in contaminated urban river purification

• Published in: Environmental technology & innovation 2018-08, Vol.11, p.276-285
• Main Authors: Yuan, Qing-Bin, Shen, Yi, Huang, Ya-Meng, Hu, Nan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aeration; Bacterial community; Bioaugmentation; Bioremediation; Biostimulation
• ISSN: 2352-1864; 2352-1864
• DOI: 10.1016/j.eti.2018.06.008

Microbe-based biological remediation has been widely adopted in treating contaminated soil and fresh water. The selection of various technologies is essential to reach an effective remediation. However, current application of bioremediation strategies are often just empirical in actual contaminated water purification. In this study, three bioremediation technologies, involving aeration, biostimulation and bioaugmentation, and their various combined processes are comparatively assessed for their potentials to treat the contaminated urban water. The technologies are all operated in industrial modes to simulate the bioremediation process in actual aquatic environments. Results indicated that the aeration and bioaugmentation significantly decreased COD concentration, but hardly reduced nitrogen level. The biostimulation performed significant denitrification potential, but led to the organics enrichment and the bacterial diversity decrease. The any two combinations of aeration, bioaugmentation and biostimulation could not reduce COD and nitrogen simultaneously. By comparison, the combination of aeration, bioaugmentation and biostimulation reduced both COD and nitrogen greatly, and preserved bacterial diversity abundant. In rivers polluted by both organics and nitrogen, an integrated process was more promising compared to the single process. The study would provide direct theoretical and experimental implications for the selection and optimization of bioremediation technologies. [Display omitted] •Three bioremediation technologies were compared to treat the polluted urban river.•The aeration and bioaugmentation greatly reduced COD but hardly reduced nitrogen.•The biostimulation reduced nitrogen but not COD and decreased bacterial diversity.•The combination of the three technologies reduced both COD and nitrogen greatly.•An integrated process was more promising when the bioremediation was adopted.