Nitrate and Nitrite Reduction by Fe0: Influence of Mass Transport, Temperature, and Denitrifying Microbes

Abstract

To evaluate how mass transport, temperature, and denitrifying micro-organisms affect the relative kinetics of nitrate and nitrite reduction by iron metal (Fe0), nitrate and nitrite reduction rates were measured over a range of mixing rates and temperatures. The effect of mixing rate was studied at a polished Fe0 rotating disk electrode (RDE) in an electrochemical cell, and the effect of temperature was studied in batch reactors with granular Fe0 in the absence and presence of Paracoccus denitrificans. Electrode rotation rate had little influence on the cathodic current measured in the presence of nitrate, whereas higher rotation rates resulted in significant increases in current in the presence of nitrite. The heterogeneous reaction rate coefficient (krxn) for nitrite reduction at the Fe0 RDE is several orders of magnitude faster than the surface-area normalized rate coefficient (kSA) for nitrite reduction by granular Fe0. Activation energies for nitrate and nitrite reduction by granular Fe0 were similar ...