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. 2020 Jul 7;10(43):25679-25684.
doi: 10.1039/d0ra03330h. eCollection 2020 Jul 3.

Degradation pathway and microbial mechanism of high-concentration thiocyanate in gold mine tailings wastewater

Lei Li  1 , Fanyao Yue  2 , Yancheng Li  1   3 , Aijiang Yang  1   3 , Jiang Li  1   3 , Yang Lv  1 , Xiong Zhong  1
Affiliations

Degradation pathway and microbial mechanism of high-concentration thiocyanate in gold mine tailings wastewater

Lei Li et al. RSC Adv. .

Abstract

As one of the inorganic pollutants with the highest concentration in the waste water of gold tailings using biohydrometallurgy, thiocyanate (SCN-) was effectively degraded in this research adopting a two-stage activated sludge biological treatment, and the corresponding degradation pathway and microbial community characteristics in this process were also studied. The results showed that SCN- at 1818.00 mg L-1 in the influent decreased to 0.68 mg L-1 after flowing through the two-stage activated sludge units. Raman spectroscopy was used to study the changes of relevant functional groups, finding that SCN- was degraded in the COS pathway. Based on 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing technology, the microbial diversity in this system was analyzed, and the results indicated that Thiobacillus played a major role in degrading SCN-, of which the abundance in these two activated sludge units was 32.05% and 20.37%, respectively. The results further revealed the biological removal mechanism of SCN- in gold mine tailings wastewater.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no conflicts to declare.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Raman spectrum analysis of water quality—①: regulating tank; ②: primary activated sludge unit; ③: secondary activated sludge unit.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. Venn diagram of microbial community—A: primary activated sludge unit; B: secondary activated sludge unit.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3. Microbial classification at a Phylum level—A: primary activated sludge unit; B: secondary activated sludge unit.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4. Microbial classification at a Family level—A: primary activated sludge unit; B: secondary activated sludge unit.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5. Heatmap of microbial community (A: primary activated sludge unit; B: secondary activated sludge unit).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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