Nitrogen Wastewater Treatment Research Articles

COMPARISON OF CONTAMINANTS REMOVAL EFFICIENCIES IN WASTEWATER USING CONSTRUCTED WETLANDS OF SINGLE AND TWO STAGES

Constructed wetlands are green technologies, nature-based solutions, that use phytoremediation for the treatment of wastewater studied in domestic, industrial, and agricultural uses and products such as hydrocarbons and some emerging pollutants. The objective is to analyze the efficiency of the constructed wetlands for the removal of heavy metals, nutrients such as phosphorus, and nitrogen in wastewater treatment. This study presents the results of contaminant removal from two types of constructed wetlands; single-stage and two-stage, which determine their efficiency. The removal of COD, BOD, phosphorus, fats, nitrogen, solids and others, showed similar efficiencies for each plant, with removal ranges between 16% and 95% relative to each pollutant analyzed. As a complement, the concentration of heavy chromium VI, cadmium, and total iron were reduced and analized thlrough the UV-VIS spectrophotometric method, which from three absorbance measurements for each metal, with wavelengths of 540 nm, 228 nm, 8 nm, and 510 nm, respectively, efficiencies of 62% and 85% were found for chromium VI removal; 43% and 53% removal for cadmium; 37% and 53% removal for total iron, results according to single-stage and two-stage plants.

Isolation, Identification and Characterization of Denitrifying Phototrophic Bacteria from Marine and Aquaculture Wastewater

Denitrifying bacteria occur primarily in the soil and play an important role in the nitrogen cycle and wastewater treatment. This study investigated the possibility of isolating denitrifying phototrophic bacteria from marine and aquaculture wastewater. The denitrifying ability of isolates was examined through their utilization of inorganic nitrogen and nitrate reductase test. The photosynthetic capability of the isolates was determined by detecting the photosynthetic pigments (bacteriochlorophyll and carotenoid). Molecular characterization of the isolates was carried out by the amplification of 16S rRNA gene. Forty-five different isolates were obtained and photosynthetic pigments were detected in 12 (8 from marine and 4 from aquaculture). Four of the isolates were found to grow on both inorganic nitrate and nitrite as the sole carbon source. Molecular characterization has shown that the isolates are denitrifying bacteria and the relationship between isolates and other denitrifying bacteria has been established by the construction of the phylogenetic tree. Hence denitrification and denitrifying bacteria can occur in both marine and aquaculture wastewaters.

Responses of microalgae under different physiological phases to struvite as a buffering nutrient source for biomass and lipid production

Microalgae cultivation for biodiesel production is promising, but the high demand for nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, remains a limiting factor. This study investigated effects of struvite, a low-cost nutrient source, on microalgae production under different physiological phases. Changes in element concentrations were determined to characterize the controllable nutrient release properties of struvite. Results showed that nutrient elements could be effectively supplemented by struvite. However, responses of microalgae under different growth stages to struvite varied obviously, achieving the highest biomass (0.53 g/L) and the lowest (0.32 g/L). Moreover, the microalgal lipid production was obviously increased by adding struvite during the growth phase, providing the first evidence that struvite could serve as an alternative buffering nutrient source to culture microalgae. The integration of microalgae cultivation with struvite as a buffering nutrient source provides a novel strategy for high ammonia nitrogen wastewater treatment with microalgae for biodiesel production.

Optimizing nitrogenous organic wastewater treatment through integration of organic capture, anaerobic digestion, and anammox technologies: sustainability and challenges.

With China's recent commitment to reducing carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality, anaerobic digestion and anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) have emerged as promising technologies for treating nitrogenous organic wastewater. Anaerobic digestion can convert organic matter into volatile fatty acids (VFAs), methane, and other chemicals, while anammox can efficiently remove nitrogen with minimal energy consumption. This study evaluates the principles and characteristics of enhanced chemical flocculation and bioflocculation, as well as membrane separation, for capturing organic matter. Additionally, the paper evaluates the production of acids and methane from anaerobic digestion, exploring the influence of various factors and the need for control strategies. The features, challenges, and concerns of partial nitrification-anammox (PN/A) and partial denitrification-anammox (PD/A) are also outlined. Finally, an integrated system that combined organic capture, anaerobic digestion, and anammox is proposed as a sustainable and effective solution for treating nitrogenous organic wastewater and recovering energy and resources.

Metabolic insights into the interaction between nitrogen removal and 4–chlorophenol reduction of anammox consortia

The response characteristic and performance stabilization of anammox process under the stress of the potential organic pollutants support the application of ammonia–nitrogen wastewater treatment. In the present study, nitrogen removal performance was significantly suppressed with the addition of 4–chlorophenol. The activity of anammox process was inhibited by 14.23% (0.1 mg/L), 20.54% (1 mg/L) and 78.15% (10 mg/L), respectively. Metagenomic analysis revealed a significant decrease in the abundance of KEGG pathways associated with carbohydrate and amino acid metabolism with increasing 4–chlorophenol concentration. Metabolic pathway profiles suggest that putrescine is down–regulated at high 4–chlorophenol stress due to inhibition of nitrogen metabolism processes, while it is up–regulated to reduce oxidative damage. In addition, the presence of 4–chlorophenol induced an enhancement of EPS and bacterial debris decomposition, and a partial conversion of 4–chlorophenol to p–nitrophenol. This study unravels the mechanism of effect on anammox consortia in response to 4–CP, which could provide supplementary to facilitate its full-scale application.

Removal of chemical oxygen demand and ammonia nitrogen from high salinity tungsten smelting wastewater by one-step electrochemical oxidation: From bench-scale test, pilot-scale test, to industrial test

In recent years, electrochemical oxidation (EO) shows the characteristics of green and high efficiency in removing chemical oxygen demand (COD) and ammonia nitrogen (NH3–N) from wastewater, which has been favored by researchers. However, at present, most of current studies on EO remain in laboratory stage, reports about pilot-scale or even industrial tests with large treatment capacity are few, which slowing down the use of the advanced technology to practical application. In this study, bench-scale tests, pilot-scale tests (treatment capacity 200–500 L/h), and industrial tests (treatment capacity 100 m3/h) were carried out by EO technology in view of the characteristics of tungsten smelting wastewater (TSW) with high salinity (NaCl), COD, and NH3–N. Results showed that the removal of COD and NH3–N was a competitive reaction in the EO process, and COD could be removed more preferentially than NH3–N. When NH3–N content was low, the influent pH had a minimal effect on its removal, and when NH3–N content was high, increasing the influent pH was beneficial to its removal. Industrial tests showed that the one-step removal of COD and NH3–N in TSW met the standard, and the power consumption per cubic meter of wastewater was only 4.2 kW h, and the treatment cost was much lower than the two-step process of “breaking point chlorination to remove NH3–N and adding oxidant to remove COD”. This study has successfully realized industrial application of EO technology in TSW treatment for the first time and provided a successful case, which is helpful to accelerate the popularization and application of this technology in the field of high salinity organic ammonia nitrogen wastewater treatment.

Transcriptomics reveals the effect of ammonia nitrogen concentration on Pseudomonas stutzeri F2 assimilation and the analysis of amtB function

The biological treatment of wastewater with high concentrations of ammonia nitrogen has become a hot research issue, but there are limited reports on the mechanism of ammonia nitrogen utilization by microorganisms. In this paper, a transcriptomic approach was used to investigate the differences in gene expression at 500.0 mg/L (Amo 500) and 100.0 mg/L (Amo 100) ammonium concentrations to reveal the mechanism of ammonia nitrogen removal from water by Pseudomonas stutzeri F2. The transcriptome data showed 1015 (459 up-regulated and 556 down-regulated) differentially expressed genes with functional gene annotation related to nitrogen source metabolism, glycolysis, tricarboxylic acid cycle, extracellular polysaccharide synthesis, energy conversion and transmembrane transport, revealing the metabolic process of ammonium nitrogen conversion to biological nitrogen in P. stutzeri F2 through assimilation. To verify the effect of ammonium transporter protein (AmtB) of cell membrane on assimilation, a P. stutzeri F2-ΔamtB mutant strain was obtained by constructing a knockout plasmid (pK18mobsacB-ΔamtB), and it was found that the growth characteristics and ammonium removal rate of the mutant strain were significantly reduced at high ammonium concentration. The carbon source components and dissolved oxygen conditions were optimized after analyzing the transcriptome data, and the ammonium removal rate was increased from 41.23% to 94.92% with 500.0 mg/L ammonium concentration. The study of P. stutzeri F2 transcript level reveals the mechanism of ammonia nitrogen influence on microbial assimilation process and improvement strategy, which provides a new strategy for the treatment of ammonia nitrogen wastewater.

Electrostimulation triggers an increase in cross-niche microbial associations toward enhancing organic nitrogen wastewater treatment

As an efficient wastewater pretreatment biotechnology, electrostimulated hydrolysis acidification (eHA) has been used to accelerate the removal of refractory pollutants, which is closely related to the effects of electrostimulation on microbial interspecies associations. However, the ecological processes underpinning such linkages remain unresolved, especially for the microbial communities derived from different niches, such as the electrode surface and plankton. Herein, the principles of cross-niche microbial associations and community assembly were investigated using molecular ecological network and phylogenetic bin-based null model analysis (iCAMP) based on 16S rRNA gene sequences. The electrostimulated planktonic sludge and electrode biofilm displayed significantly (P < 0.05) 1.67 and 1.53 times higher organic nitrogen pollutant (azo dye Alizarin Yellow R) degradation efficiency than non-electrostimulation group, and the corresponding microbial community composition and structure were significantly (P < 0.05) changed. Electroactive bacteria and functional degraders were enriched in the electrode biofilm and planktonic sludge, respectively. Notably, electrostimulation strengthened the synergistic microbial associations (1.8 times more links) between sludge and biofilm members. Additionally, both electrostimulation and cross-niche microbial associations induced greater importance of deterministic assembly. Overall, this study highlights the specificity of cross-electrode surface microbial associations and ecological processes with electrostimulation and advances our understanding of the manipulation of sludge microbiomes in engineered wastewater treatment systems.

Research Progress on the Treatment of High-Concentration Nitrogen and Phosphorus Wastewater by Struvite Precipitation

Aiming at the problems of eutrophication of water bodies and the shortage of phosphorus resources, the struvite method for treating high-concentration nitrogen and phosphorus-containing wastewater has been widely used because of its high efficiency and low consumption. This paper summarizes the research progress on the treatment efficiency, influencing factors and stability of high concentration nitrogen and phosphorus mixed wastewater in recent years, and on this basis, the feasibility and development prospect of MAP method in the treatment of high concentration nitrogen and phosphorus wastewater are proposed.

Removal of low concentration ammonia nitrogen enhanced by hydraulic cavitation combined with ozonation

The combination of hydraulic cavitation and ozone oxidation improves the removal efficiency of low concentration ammonia nitrogen. Focusing on the treatment of low concentration ammonia nitrogen wastewater (about 25mg/L), the study discusses the treatment effect of cavitation combined with different gases (O2, O3) on low concentration ammonia nitrogen. The treatment effect of ozone 3L/min combined with cavitation on ammonia nitrogen is 33.07%. The treatment effect of oxygen (3mg/L) combined with cavitation on ammonia nitrogen was 16.91%. At the same time, the treatment efficiency of ammonia nitrogen at different PH values was compared. When the initial concentration was adjusted from 7 to 10, the treatment efficiency increased from 33.07% to 84.55%. When PH=10, the ammonia nitrogen concentration in water finally dropped to 3.5mg/L, reaching the Chinese first-level emission standard (15mg/L). In addition, the mechanism of treating ammonia nitrogen in water by hydraulic cavitation combined with ozonation was discussed. The results show that ozone combined cavitation is very effective for the treatment of low concentration ammonia nitrogen wastewater.

Electrocatalytic Performance of V2O5/Ti Composite Membrane for High-Efficiency Treatment of Ammonia Nitrogen Wastewater

V2O5 films were deposited on Ti substrates to create V2O5/Ti composite membranes by using magnetron sputtering with V2O5 as the target. The effect of sputtering temperature (150 °C–450 °C) on the structure and performance of the V2O5/Ti composite membrane was mainly investigated. The results showed that V2O5 films prepared by magnetron sputtering were α-V2O5, exhibiting lamellar particulates with a rather dense structure. Additionally, V2O5 could enter the microporous structure inside Ti substrates while providing reactive centers and microchannels for the degradation of contaminants in electrocatalytic membrane reactor (ECMR). The strong diffraction peak in the XRD of 300-V2O5/Ti membranes indicated that the sputtering temperature of 300 °C was comparatively advantageous for the transformation of V2O5 crystal phase. The 300-V2O5/Ti also had a smaller interface impedance, larger electrochemical active area (1.45 cm2) as well as diffusion coefficient (7.14 × 10−3 cm2 s−1). The ECMR was built by using V2O5/Ti composite membrane and stainless steel mesh to be anode and cathode, respectively. The ammonia nitrogen removal rate of ECMR reached 93.68% with 300-V2O5/Ti as the anode, and the energy consumption was 0.35 kWh/kg (NH4 +-N). In conclusion, V2O5/Ti composite membrane has excellent potential for ammonia nitrogen effluent treatment.

The Effect of Up-Flow Rate on the Nitrogen Treatment Efficiency and Sludge Characteristics of ANAMMOX Process with Up-Flow Anaerobic Sludge Bed Reactor

Anaerobic ammonia oxidation (ANAMMOX) technology is a novel biological nitrogen removal technology with potential applications for the treatment of nitrogenous wastewater treatment prospects. Most of the literature explores the growth environment of anaerobic ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and total nitrogen removal efficiency but the influence of reactor operating conditions (such as up-flow rate) on the treatment efficiency and sludge growth property of anaerobic ammonia-oxidizing bacteria is rarely discussed. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to discuss the effect of up-flow rate on the treatment efficiency and sludge property of the anaerobic ammonia oxidation treatment procedure adopting up-flow anaerobic sludge bed (UASB) as a reactor. The results show that up-flow rate has a significant effect on sludge concentration and sludge growth rate. The highest sludge concentration and maximum sludge growth rate could be obtained at the up-flow rate of 3.21 m/h. According to the analysis results of the sludge concentration, we speculate that when the flow rate was lower than 3.21 m/h, the sludge particles did not easily collide with each other to produce a larger sludge floc. On the contrary, when the up-flow rate was higher than 3.21 m/h, the larger sludge floc could be decomposed by the shear force. The sludge concentration was reduced by these two reasons. On the other hand, the average total nitrogen volume removal rates in test runs 1 through to 4 were 0.18 g-N/m3/d, 0.19 g-N/m3/d, 0.20 g-N/m3/d and 0.20 g-N/m3/d at up-flow rates from 1.95 m/h to 3.70 m/h, respectively. Therefore, the treatment efficiency was not affected by the up-flow rate in these operating conditions.

Nitrogen Removal Characteristics of a Marine Denitrifying Pseudomonas stutzeri BBW831 and a Simplified Strategy for Improving the Denitrification Performance Under Stressful Conditions.

A marine aerobic denitrifying bacterium was isolated and identified as Pseudomonas stutzeri BBW831 from the seabed silt of Beibu Gulf in China. According to the genome analysis, P. stutzeri BBW831 possessed a total of 14 genes (narG, narH, narI, narJ, napA, napB, nirB, nirD, nirS, norB, norC, norD, norQ, and nosZ) responsible for fully functional enzymes (nitrate reductase, nitrite reductase, nitric oxide reductase, and nitrous oxide reductase) involved in the complete aerobic denitrification pathway, suggesting that it had the potential for reducing nitrate to the final N2. Denitrification results showed that P. stutzeri BBW831 exhibited efficient nitrogen removal characteristics. Within 12h, the NO3--N removal efficiency and rate reached 94.64% and 13.09mg·L-1·h-1 under 166.10 ± 3.75mg/L NO3--N as the sole nitrogen source, and removal efficiency of the mixed nitrogen (50.50 ± 0.55, 62.28 ± 0.74, and 64.26 ± 0.90mg/L of initial NH4+-N, NO3--N, and NO2--N, respectively) was nearly 100%. Furthermore, a simplified strategy, by augmenting the inoculation biomass, was developed for promoting the nitrogen removal performance under high levels of NO2--N and salinity. As a result, the removal efficiency of the initial NO2--N up to approximately 130mg/L reached 99.46% within 8h, and the NO3--N removal efficiency achieved at 59.46% under the NaCl concentration even up to 50g/L. The C/N ratio of 10 with organic acid salt such as trisodium citrate and sodium acetate as the carbon source was most conducive for cell growth and nitrogen removal by P. stutzeri BBW831, respectively. In conclusion, the marine P. stutzeri BBW831 contained the functional genes responsible for a complete aerobic denitrification pathway (NO3--N → NO2--N → NO → N2O → N2), and had great potential for the practical treatment of high-salinity nitrogenous mariculture wastewater.

Potential role of AHL-mediated quorum sensing in inducing non-filamentous sludge bulking under high organic loading

The underlying microcosmic mechanisms of non-filamentous bulking is still unclear. Non-filamentous bulking usually occurs under abnormal operating conditions (adverse environmental conditions for bacteria). Microbes coordinate their behaviors in response to adverse environments through quorum sensing (QS). The potential role of the QS in inducing non-filamentous bulking and the feasibility of maintaining sludge aggregate structure, stability, and settleability through the quorum quenching strategy were investigated in this study. The results indicated that the concentration of N-acyl homoserine lactose (AHL) obviously increased and the synthetic gene hdtS and the sensing gene lasR related to AHLs were significantly upregulated in the sequencing batch reactor (SBR) under the high organic loading. The AHL-QS system was triggered, which indued non-filamentous bulking in the SBR. The production of exopolysaccharide was evidently promoted by QS via regulating the pel gene cluster, resulting in an increase in the negative charge and a decrease in the hydrophobicity on aggregate surface. The surface energy barrier (WT) between bacteria significantly increased during non-filamentous bulking. Additionally, the triggered QS resulted in a decrease in the molecular weight of exopolysaccharides, which led to the weakening of gel properties. Vanillin as a quorum sensing inhibitor effectively inhibited non-filamentous bulking by decreasing the production of exopolysaccharides, without the negatively effect on the key enzyme activity of nitrogen removal and wastewater treatment performance. Therefore, quorum quenching is the potentially effective strategy to prevent and control non-filamentous bulking. This study provided new insight into the microcosmic mechanism of non-filamentous sludge.

Unique three-dimensional nanoflower-like NiCu electrodes constructed by Co, S co-doping for efficient ammonia oxidation reaction

Nowadays, ammonia–nitrogen has been brought into focus for its hazards to the ecological environment. Electrocatalytic oxidation technology, with easy-to-operate and environmental friendliness, is expected to be applied to degrade ammonia–nitrogen. However, the key issues are the sluggish kinetics and high overpotential in ammonia oxidation reaction (AOR). In this work, a unique three-dimensional nanoflower-like structure electrode was constructed by Co, S co-doping NiCu for catalyzing AOR. This electrode provides a huge contact area in the active substance/electrolyte interface, greatly shortening the ion transport paths. Electrochemical tests confirmed that the Ni1Cu1Co0.5-S-T/CP electrode obtained a high current density of 121.1 mA/cm2 at 1.65 V vs RHE, a low onset potential of 1.241 V and demonstrated an excellent stability for at least 12 h. In the 8-hour ammonia–nitrogen removal experiment, a removal rate of 98.07 % and a high N2 selectivity of 81.21 % were obtained. This work demonstrated that it was expected to provide an eco-friendly method for ammonia–nitrogen wastewater treatment based on the electrode.

Preparation of low-cost functionalized diatomite and its effective removal of ammonia nitrogen from wastewater.

A low-cost functionalization method was used to treat diatomite, and an efficient adsorbent for ammonia nitrogen was prepared by optimizing the functionalization conditions. The functionalized diatomite (DTCA-Na) was characterized by SEM, EDS, BET, XRD, FT-IR, and TG. The results demonstrate that DTCA-Na has excellent adsorption performance after being modified with H2SO4 (60.00 wt.%), NaCl (5.00 wt.%), and calcination at 400°C for 2h. While studying the effect of adsorption factors on the removal of ammonia nitrogen, the kinetic and thermodynamic behaviors in the adsorption process were discussed. The removal efficiency of the simulated wastewater with the initial ammonia nitrogen concentration of 10.00mg L-1 by the DTCA-Na was more than 80% when the contact time was 60min, pH was 6-10, the dosage of adsorbent was 1.00g, and the temperature was 25°C. The adsorption process of ammonia nitrogen was conformed to the pseudo-first-order and Langmuir isothermal model. The removal efficiency of ammonia nitrogen was still above 80% after 5 times adsorption-desorption experiments. The DTCA-Na has a brighter prospect of application in the field of ammonia nitrogen wastewater treatment due to its excellent adsorption performance and low-cost advantage.

Synthesis, characterization and performance of microorganism-embedded biocomposites of LDH-modified PVA/SA hydrogel beads for enhanced biological nitrogen removal process

In this study, to improve the biological treatment of nitrogenous wastewater, a series of hybrid embedding materials were synthesized and applied in microbial immobilization to form novel biocomposites, which utilize MgAl-LDH as additives to modify the polyvinyl alcohol/sodium alginate (PVA/SA) beads. As proved by several characterizations, the synthesized PVA/SA/LDH biocomposites formed well in quality and possessed suitable features, such as the dense surface morphology and three-dimensional internal network structure. By regulating the addition amount of LDHs, a better cross-linking reinforcing effect of PVA/SA/LDH biocomposite was achieved. Among the different synthesized materials, PS0.6LDH (0.6 g addition in each synthesis process) exhibited improved mechanical strength and stability, thereby providing a protected environment for the proliferation of embedded microorganisms. Based on this, a significant treatment performance was observed in the biological process of PS0.6LDH, and the removal efficiencies of TN and COD reached above 90% in the periodic experiments. Microbial community analysis indicated that the dominant microorganisms of the genera Acinetobacter, Chryseobacterium, and unclassified-Enterobacteriaceae contribute to the biological nitrogen removal, and the heterotrophic nitrification-aerobic denitrification and assimilation were the main pathways. This study would be a valuable reference for the development of microbial immobilization technology in the practical applications of wastewater treatment.

Mutagenesis of high-efficiency heterotrophic nitrifying-aerobic denitrifying bacterium Rhodococcus sp. strain CPZ 24

Breeding high-efficiency heterotrophic nitrifying–aerobic denitrifying (SND) bacteria is important for the removal of biological nitrogen in wastewater treatment. In this study, a high-efficiency SND mutant strain, ΔRhodococcus sp. CPZ 24, was obtained by ultraviolet–diethyl sulfate compound mutagenesis. The maximum nitrification and denitrification rates were 3.77 and 1.37 mg·L−1·h−1, respectively 30.30 % and 17.10 % higher than those of wild bacteria. Biolog technology and network model analysis revealed that ΔCPZ 24 significantly improved the utilisation ability and metabolic activity of organic carbon sources. Furthermore, the expression levels of the nitrogen removal function genes nxrA, nosZ, amoA, and norB in strain ΔCPZ 24 increased significantly. In actual sewage, mutant bacteria ΔCPZ 24 have a 95.05 % ammonia–nitrogen degradation rate and a 96.67 % nitrate-nitrogen degradation rate. These results suggested that UV-DES compound mutation was a successful strategy to improve the nitrogen removal performance of SND bacteria in wastewater treatment.

Corncob biocarriers with available carbon release for Chlamydopodium sp. microalgae towards enhanced nitrogen removal from low C/N rare earth element tailings (REEs) wastewater

Low nitrogen (N) removal efficiency limits the potential of microalgae technology for the treatment of high nitrogen and low carbon rare earth tailings (REEs) wastewater. In this study, waste corncob was utilized as a biocarrier immobilizing Chlamydopodium sp. microalgae to realize high-efficient treatment of the REEs wastewater. In only 2.5 d, corncob-immobilized microalgae allowed the residual concentrations of N lower than the emission standards, and ammonia nitrogen (NH4+-N) removal rate is 83.3 mg L−1·d−1, total inorganic nitrogen (TIN) removal rate is 86.7 mg L−1·d−1, which was 18.5 times that of the previously-reported microalgae (4.68 mg L−1·d−1). Compared with other microalgae immobilization carriers, corncob possesses the ability to release available carbon sources for microalgae. Composition analysis and sugar verification experiments showed that the main content of TOC released by corncob was monosaccharide, and in a certain range, the removal rate of N was positively correlated with the TOC concentration. The utilization of biomass wastes with dual functions as biological carriers has great potential to improve the performance of microalgae, and is conducive to the development of engineering applications.

Boron-doped activated carbon catalyzed reduction of dilute nitrite acid in oxidative esterification reaction in the coal to ethylene glycol process

Coal to ethylene glycol (CTEG) technology has attracted more and more attention in the past decades. However, the by-production of nitric acid (NA) during oxidative esterification reaction not only causes equipment corrosion but also increases the cost of nitrogen replenishment and wastewater treatment, therefore it is meaningful to convert NA to useful feedstock. Herein, non-metallic B doped activated carbon (B-AC) was prepared and used to activate the reduction of NA. The structure and physicochemical properties of B-AC were firstly examined by SEM, ICP-OES, N2 adsorption and desorption isotherms, FT-IR, Raman, and XPS spectrum. Furthermore, the catalytic performance and stability of B-AC were evaluated in the batch experiments. Results showed that BET surface area and pore volume of B-AC decreased with the increase of B doping amount, and the content of BC3 component enhanced with the increase of calcination temperature. B-AC-800(10) with the mass ratio of AC to BA of 10 and the calcinated temperature of800 °C performed the best activity with about 85% and 66% conversion under 2% and 5% of NA solution, and each catalytic performance of B-AC is about 10% higher than pure AC. The slight blockage of pore structure due to the residual NA and the fall of B atoms from B-AC together lead to a decline of about 20% in NA conversion after five cycles. These findings indicated the application of B-AC as a promising catalyst to reduce NA wastewater in the CTEG process.