Impacts of ammonia on zinc oxide nanoparticle toxicity to Nitrosomonas europaea

A Although the toxicity effects of engineering nanoparticles (NPs) in biological wastewater nitrogen removal (BNR) system have been extensively attracted, the impacts of co-existing contaminants from wastewater on NP toxicity have been less addressed. In this study, the effects of ammonia on ZnO NP toxicity to typical ammonia oxidizing bacteria-Nitrosomonas europaea were investigated, as indicated by the cell density, membrane integrity, ammonia oxidation rate, and AMO activity. After 6-h's exposure to 10 mg/L ZnO NPs, the cell density, membrane integrity, ammonia oxidation rate, and AMO activity was dramatically suppressed despite of the increasing ammonia loading. Ammonia at varying concentrations did not obviously affect ZnO NPs toxicity to cell density. The presence of ammonia at 100 or 200 mg/L significantly alleviated the antibacterial effects of ZnO NPs on cells. The reduction of the concentration of released Zn²⁺ might be responsible for the compromised ZnO NPs toxicity. However, the presence of extremely dosed ammonia at 200 mg/L imposed restrictions on further alleviation of ZnO NPs toxicities probably due to the production of free ammonia and acclamation of nitrite. All these findings would provide new insights for risk assessment of the combined effects of NPs with other co-existing contaminants in the BNR system. (paper)