Journal
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH
Volume 208, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2022.112713
Keywords
Dissolved organic nitrogen; Chemometric tools; Reactomics; Molecular conformations; IMS-MS; Transformation mechanisms
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [52170036]
- Excellent Research Program of Nanjing University [ZYJH005]
- Research Program of State Key Laboratory
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The study provides a method to decipher esDON information in wastewater treatment processes and discovers the important role of esDON in DON transformation and characteristics, highlighting the significance of controlling esDON to mitigate the adverse impacts of DON on receiving waters.
Knowledge of endogenous-source dissolved organic nitrogen (esDON) produced in wastewater treatment processes is critical for evaluating its potential impacts on receiving waters because esDON is a recognized concern, as it causes eutrophication. However, differentiating esDON from influent residual DON in real wastewater is always a challenge. Here, we deciphered esDON information in DON transformation processes along a full-scale wastewater treatment train by combining multiple chemometric tools with ion-mobility separation quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (IMS-QTOF MS) analyses. In total, DON became more refractory and compact with shorter carbon chains and fewer nitrogen atoms, and esDON composed a nonnegligible fraction that dominated DON transformation and characteristics. New esDON produced in treatment processes constituted a crucial part (>35.5%) of wastewater DON, and its contributions to wastewater DON are augmented along the train. Evidence of molecular conformations further confirmed dominant roles of esDON in DON characteristics. Moreover, esDON participated in 46.7% of core biochemical reaction networks, explaining the importance of esDON in DON transformation. Our study offers a tool to gain esDON characteristics and transformation mechanisms, and highlights the importance to control esDON for alleviating adverse influences from DON in receiving waters.
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