Bioremediation of contaminated urban river sediment with methanol stimulation: Metabolic processes accompanied with microbial community changes

Abstract

The intense pollution of urban river sediments with rapid urbanization has attracted considerable attention. Complex contaminated sediments urgently need to be remediated to conserve the ecological functions of impacted rivers. This study investigated the effect of using methanol as a co-substrate on the stimulation of the indigenous microbial consortium to enhance the bioremediation of petroleum hydrocarbons (PHs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in an urban river sediment. After 65 days of treatment, the PAHs degradation efficiencies in the sediment adding methanol were 4.87%–40.3% higher than the control. The removal rate constant of C31 was 0.0749 d−1 with 100 mM of supplied methanol, while the corresponding rate was 0.0399 d−1 in the control. Four-ring PAHs were effectively removed at a degradation efficiency of 65%–69.8%, increased by 43.3% compared with the control. Sulfate reduction and methanogenesis activity were detected, and methane-producing archaea (such as Methanomethylovorans, with a relative abundance of 25.87%–58.53%) and the sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB, such as Desulfobulbus and Desulfobacca) were enriched. In addition, the chemolithoautotrophic sulfur-oxidizing bacteria (SOB, such as Sulfuricurvum, with a relative abundance of 34%–39.2%) were predominant after the depletion of total organic carbon (TOC), and markedly positively correlated with the PHs and PAHs degradation efficiencies (P < 0.01). The SRB and SOB populations participated in the sulfur cycle, which was associated with PHs and PAHs degradation. Other potential functional bacteria (such as Dechloromonas) were also obviously enriched and significantly positively correlated with the TOC concentration after methanol injection (P < 0.001). This study provides a new insight into the succession of the indigenous microbial community with methanol as a co-substrate for the enhanced bioremediation of complexly contaminated urban river sediments.