Water Research X最新文献

{"title":"Elucidating the complex hydrolysis and conversion network of xanthan-like extracellular heteropolysaccharides in waste activated sludge fermentation","authors":"Chen-Yuan Zhou ,&nbsp;Kun Dai ,&nbsp;Yi-Peng Lin ,&nbsp;Xing-Chen Huang ,&nbsp;Yan-Lin Hu ,&nbsp;Xuan-Xin Chen ,&nbsp;Xiao-Fei Yang ,&nbsp;Qi-Yuan Sun ,&nbsp;Yong Zhang ,&nbsp;Mark C.M. van Loosdrecht ,&nbsp;Raymond Jianxiong Zeng ,&nbsp;Fang Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.wroa.2025.100303","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wroa.2025.100303","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The hydrolysis of structural extracellular polymeric substances (St-EPS) is considered a major limiting step in the anaerobic fermentation of waste activated sludge (WAS). However, the degradation of heteropolysaccharides, characterized by complex monomers of uronic acids and neutral saccharides in St-EPS, has rarely been reported. In this study, microbial-produced xanthan-like heteropolysaccharides, characterized by a blue filamentary film, were identified. The xanthan-producing bacteria comprised ∼7.2% of total genera present in WAS. An xanthan-degrading consortium (XDC) was enriched in an anaerobic batch reactor. This consortium could degrade Xanthan for over 90% and disrupt the gel structure of xanthan while promoting methane production from WAS by 29%. The xanthan degradation network consisting of extracellular enzymes and bacteria was elucidated by combining high-throughput sequencing, metagenomic, and metaproteomic analyses. Five enzymes were identified as responsible for hydrolyzing xanthan to monomers, including xanthan lyase, β-<span>d</span>-glucosidase, β-<span>d</span>-glucanase, α-<span>d</span>-mannosidase, and unsaturated glucuronyl hydrolase. Seven genera, including <em>Paenibacillus</em> (0.2%) and <em>Clostridium</em> (3.1%), were identified as key bacteria excreting one to five of the aforementioned enzymes. This study thus provides insights into the complex conversions in anaerobic digestion of WAS and gives a foundation for future optimization of this process.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":52198,"journal":{"name":"Water Research X","volume":"27 ","pages":"Article 100303"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11783115/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143081971","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Influence of high-load shocks on achieving mainstream partial nitrification: Microbial community succession","authors":"Chenjie Jia,&nbsp;Jialin Li,&nbsp;Zhaoyang Li,&nbsp;Liang Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.wroa.2025.100304","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wroa.2025.100304","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Driving microbial community succession through the regulation of operational strategies is crucial for achieving partial nitrification (PN) in municipal wastewater. However, at present, there is a decoupling between the strategic regulation of PN systems and the succession characteristics of the microbial community. This study examined the correlation between microbial community succession and PN performance under two high-load shocks (HLS1 and HLS2) treating actual sewage. During HLS1, the influent organic loading rate (OLR) and nitrogen loading rate (NLR) increased from 116.7 ± 37.7 to 219.7 ± 24.7 mg COD/(g VSS·d) and 0.21±0.02 to 0.33±0.02 kg N/m³/d respectively, with the nitrite concentration and nitrite accumulation ratio only reaching 11.7 ± 2.7 mg/L and 49.3 ± 13.9 %, respectively. During HLS2, the influent OLR and NLR increased from 123.5 ± 17.2 to 300.3 ± 49.2 mg COD/(g VSS·d) and 0.19±0.03 to 0.32±0.03 kg N/m³/d respectively, resulting in a nitrite accumulation ratio of 89.4 ± 10.7 %. The system achieved efficient PN performance and sustained for 124 days. High-throughput sequencing results showed that community diversity remained consistently high, and the community composition returned to its initial state following a minor succession during HLS1. During HLS2, the high-load shock reduced the richness and evenness of the microbial community. The community underwent succession in a new direction, leading to community composition and function changes. The results indicate that the realization, stabilization, and disruption of PN are influenced not only by operational parameters but also by microbial community structure.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":52198,"journal":{"name":"Water Research X","volume":"27 ","pages":"Article 100304"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143180424","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Influence of aquaculture practices on microbiota composition and pathogen abundance in pond ecosystems in South China","authors":"Shuhui Niu ,&nbsp;Chuanlong Li ,&nbsp;Jun Xie ,&nbsp;Zhifei Li ,&nbsp;Kai Zhang ,&nbsp;Guangjun Wang ,&nbsp;Yun Xia ,&nbsp;Jingjing Tian ,&nbsp;Hongyan Li ,&nbsp;Wenping Xie ,&nbsp;Wangbao Gong","doi":"10.1016/j.wroa.2025.100302","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wroa.2025.100302","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Pond microbiota play a crucial role in maintaining water quality and the health of aquaculture species. This study aimed to explore the relationship between pond water and sediment microbiota (especially potential pathogens) and physicochemical parameters under different aquaculture conditions. Samples of pond water and sediment were collected from 21 monitoring sites across eastern, western, and northern Guangdong, and the Pearl River Delta in November 2021, March 2022, and July 2022. Microbial structures were analyzed using high-throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. The results indicated that sediment microbiota distribution was more uniform than that of water microbiota. Additionally, sampling time significantly influenced the uniformity of water microbiota distribution more than that sediment microbiota. Factors such as aquaculture species, culture pattern, NH₄⁺-N, longitude, latitude, total nitrogen (TN), NO₃⁻-N, NO₂⁻-N, and total phosphorus (TP) were significantly correlated with water microbiota structure, and TN, TP, and organic carbon were significantly correlated with sediment microbiota structure. Furthermore, an increase in the NH₄⁺-N concentration in the pond water significantly increased the variety of pathogenic bacteria. Higher nitrogen levels also increased the relative abundance of <em>Mycobacterium</em> in pond water, whereas the culture pattern (freshwater, seawater, brackish, modern captive culture, freshwater factory container aquaculture, or seawater factory culture) and species significantly influenced the relative abundances of <em>Vibrio, Tenacibaculum, Pseudoalteromonas</em>, and <em>Francisella</em>. Additionally, the relative abundance of pathogenic bacteria in the sediment microbiota was significantly higher than that in the water microbiota. Our results suggest that the culture patterns, species, and nitrogen concentrations should be considered when preventing pathogenic bacteria growth in aquaculture waters.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":52198,"journal":{"name":"Water Research X","volume":"27 ","pages":"Article 100302"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143180425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An integrated strategy for sequential nitrite removal and methane recovery: Sludge fermentation driven by nitrite reduction","authors":"Xiaodi Li,&nbsp;Mengxue Sun,&nbsp;Bo Wang,&nbsp;Wei Zeng,&nbsp;Yongzhen Peng","doi":"10.1016/j.wroa.2025.100301","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wroa.2025.100301","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Although the treatment of sludge with free nitrous acid can effectively recover short chain fatty acids, the feasibility of sequential nitrite reduction and methane recovery without acidic pH adjustment is still scarcely studied. Therefore, this study aimed to provide insights into the effect of nitrite at different levels on nitrite reduction and methane production. The results showed that the nitrite concentrations of 100, 200, 400 and 800 mg/L were completely reduced in 1, 2, 2 and 4 days, respectively. The nitrite reduction process stimulated the fermentation of sludge to produce more organic matters, which served as electron donors for denitrification. With the nitrite concentrations increasing from 200 to 800 mg/L methane production decreased from 128.7 to 0 mg/L at the digestion time of 15 d. The toxicity of nitrite to methanogenic microorganisms and the nitrite reduction process competing with methanogens for carbon sources may lead to the inhibition of methane production by excessive nitrite. Moreover, the methane production reached 184.4 mL with 100 mg/L nitrite reduction, which was increased by 83.2 % compared with that without nitrite addition (101.1 mL). Nitrite reduction stimulated hydrolysis without negatively impacting acetogenesis, thereby providing more substrates for subsequent methanogenesis. Model-based analysis indicated that nitrite reduction enhanced the maximum methane yield and methane production rate, aligning with the aforementioned analysis. 16S rRNA analysis unraveled that the bacterial abundance associated with hydrolysis increased. This anaerobic digestion technique driven by nitrite reduction is both environmentally and economically attractive for increasing methane production.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":52198,"journal":{"name":"Water Research X","volume":"27 ","pages":"Article 100301"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11757780/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143048606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Nanofluid-peroxydisulfate integrated volumetric solar interfacial evaporation system for water evaporation and organic pollutant removal","authors":"Chenqi Zhu,&nbsp;Debing Wang,&nbsp;Shiying Bu,&nbsp;Zhichao Wu,&nbsp;Jie Zhang,&nbsp;Qiaoying Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.wroa.2024.100293","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wroa.2024.100293","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Solar evaporation exhibits significant potential for the treatment of high-salt organic wastewater. However, it's also confronted with challenges due to the accumulation of organic pollutants and salts in the concentrated wastewater following evaporation, which compromises the long-term stability of evaporation unit and complicates subsequent treatment processes. To address these challenges, a volumetric solar interfacial evaporation (V-SIE) system by integrating Fe₃O₄_<img>H₂O nanofluids and peroxydisulfate (PDS) were proposed in this study. In V-SIE system, Fe₃O₄ magnetic nanoparticles (NPs) were prepared as solar receivers to form a volume-absorbing solar energy interface and enhance evaporation efficiency. The results show that the evaporation rate was 1.412 kg/(m²·h) and the solar efficiency reached 93.75 % as the temperature rose to 57.2 ℃. Additionally, the high thermal conductivity of Fe₃O₄ facilitated the effective heat transfer to the fluid and provided sufficient thermal energy to activate PDS, thereby removing 99.3 % of Rhodamine B (RhB). Fe₃O₄ NPs effectively promoted the generation of reactive species including SO₄^·−, ·OH, O₂^·− and ¹O₂ from PDS and the four main stages including N-de-ethylation, chromophore cleavage, ring-opening, and mineralization were proposed as the possible degradation pathway of RhB. This study provides a reference for developing V-SIE system and highlights the positive effect of nanofluids in advanced oxidation processes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":52198,"journal":{"name":"Water Research X","volume":"26 ","pages":"Article 100293"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11667070/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142886494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Enrichment and identification of a moderately acidophilic nitrite-oxidizing bacterium","authors":"Jun Xia ,&nbsp;Zicheng Su ,&nbsp;Chen Cai ,&nbsp;Tao Liu ,&nbsp;Zhiguo Yuan ,&nbsp;Min Zheng","doi":"10.1016/j.wroa.2025.100308","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wroa.2025.100308","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study enriched a novel nitrite-oxidizing bacterium (NOB, ‘<em>Candidatus</em> Nitrobacter acidophilus’) in a laboratory reactor operating at pH 4.5 for treating low-strength ammonia wastewater. Batch experiments showed that ‘<em>Ca</em>. N. acidophilus’ oxidized nitrite to nitrate at a rate of 20.7 ± 2.3 μM/h with optimal growth at pH 5, distinguishing it from most previously known NOB strains. Phylogenetic analysis showed that this <em>Nitrobacter</em> strain clustered with other <em>Nitrobacter</em> strains obtained from acidic environments but was divergent from each other with an average nucleotide identity (ANI) below 85 %. Genomic characteristics revealed that ‘<em>Ca.</em> N. acidophilus’ possesses versatile transporter systems. They are different from previously reported <em>Nitrobacter</em> strains and indicate acid adaptation mechanisms. Interestingly, the mutualistic interaction with acidophilic ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) <em>Nitrosotalea</em> markedly increased the archaeal <em>amo</em>A gene expression by 149 times and enhanced ammonia oxidation rates by 5 times, highlighting the NOB's role in alleviating nitrite inhibition on the acidophilic AOA. These findings expand our understanding of bacterial nitrite oxidation and provide valuable insights into an important partnership between acidophilic AOA and NOB in acidic environments.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":52198,"journal":{"name":"Water Research X","volume":"26 ","pages":"Article 100308"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143182195","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Spatial-economic scenarios to increase resilience to urban flooding","authors":"Maria Chiara Lippera ,&nbsp;Ganbaatar Khurelbaatar ,&nbsp;Daneish Despot ,&nbsp;Gislain Lipeme Kouyi ,&nbsp;Anacleto Rizzo ,&nbsp;Jan Friesen","doi":"10.1016/j.wroa.2024.100284","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wroa.2024.100284","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Due to accelerating climate change and the need for new development to accommodate population growth, adaptation of urban drainage systems has become a pressing issue in cities. Questions arise whether decentralised urban drainage systems are a better alternative to centralised systems, and whether Nature Based Solutions' (NBS) multifunctionality also brings economic benefits. This research aims to develop spatio-economic scenarios to support cities in increasing their resilience to urban flooding with NBS. The novelty of our work lies in the automated routines to assess the potential for decentralised NBS within the existing urban catchment. The identification of locations and dimensioning is based on open, publicly available geospatial data. Moreover, a block-based decentralization potential metric is developed to indicate stormwater mitigation potential in any urban setting. The Ecully catchment, Lyon metropolitan area (France), is presented as a case study to achieve zero combined sewer overflow (CSO) for specific design storm events. This planning workflow enables project cost savings through the most suitable allocation of distributed interventions, with cost functions also incorporating scaling effects. By reducing the number of decentralised NBS sites compared to smaller, wide-distributed interventions up to 34 % of project costs are saved when planning for a 5-year design storm and up to 7 % for a 100-year design storm. When the decentralised NBS scenario is analysed alongside other urban stormwater management practices, the centralised constructed wetland for CSO results to be the most economical solution due to the higher retention capacity and scaling effect, significantly outperforming the grey alternatives.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":52198,"journal":{"name":"Water Research X","volume":"26 ","pages":"Article 100284"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11665414/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142883391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A probabilistic deep learning approach to enhance the prediction of wastewater treatment plant effluent quality under shocking load events","authors":"Hailong Yin ,&nbsp;Yongqi Chen ,&nbsp;Jingshu Zhou ,&nbsp;Yifan Xie ,&nbsp;Qing Wei ,&nbsp;Zuxin Xu","doi":"10.1016/j.wroa.2024.100291","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wroa.2024.100291","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Sudden shocking load events featuring significant increases in inflow quantities or concentrations of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), are a major threat to the attainment of treated effluents to discharge quality standards. To aid in real-time decision-making for stable WWTP operations, this study developed a probabilistic deep learning model that comprises encoder-decoder long short-term memory (LSTM) networks with added capacity of producing probability predictions, to enhance the robustness of real-time WWTP effluent quality prediction under such events. The developed probabilistic encoder-decoder LSTM (P-ED-LSTM) model was tested in an actual WWTP, where bihourly effluent quality prediction of total nitrogen was performed and compared with classical deep learning models, including LSTM, gated recurrent unit (GRU) and Transformer. It was found that under shocking load events, the P-ED-LSTM could achieve a 49.7% improvement in prediction accuracy for bihourly real-time predictions of effluent concentration compared to the LSTM, GRU, and Transformer. A higher quantile of the probability data from the P-ED-LSTM model output, indicated a prediction value more approximate to real effluent quality. The P-ED-LSTM model also exhibited higher predictive power for the next multiple time steps with shocking load scenarios. It captured approximately 90% of the actual over-limit discharges up to 6 hours ahead, significantly outperforming other deep learning models. Therefore, the P-ED-LSTM model, with its robust adaptability to significant fluctuations, has the potential for broader applications across WWTPs with different processes, as well as providing strategies for wastewater system regulation under emergency conditions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":52198,"journal":{"name":"Water Research X","volume":"26 ","pages":"Article 100291"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11667701/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142886490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Dual-purpose elemental sulfur for capturing and accelerating biodegradation of petroleum hydrocarbons in anaerobic environment","authors":"Qian Zhao ,&nbsp;Chengmei Liao ,&nbsp;Enli Jiang ,&nbsp;Xuejun Yan ,&nbsp;Huijuan Su ,&nbsp;Lili Tian ,&nbsp;Nan Li ,&nbsp;Fernanda Leite Lobo ,&nbsp;Xin Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.wroa.2024.100290","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wroa.2024.100290","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Hydrophobic organic pollutants in aqueous environments are challenging to biodegrade due to limited contact between microorganisms, the pollutants and the electron acceptor, particularly under anaerobic or anoxic conditions. Here, we propose a novel strategy that uses inexpensive, dual-function elemental sulfur (S⁰) to enhance biodegradation. Using petroleum hydrocarbons as the target pollutants, we demonstrated that hydrophobic and nonpolar S° can concentrate hydrocarbons while simultaneously serving as an electron acceptor to enrich hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria. The permeable reactive barrier filled with S⁰ effectively removed petroleum hydrocarbons. In addition to rapid adsorption, we discovered, for the first time, that petroleum hydrocarbons underwent efficient biodegradation through the reduction of S⁰. Specifically, n-alkanes were degraded by 80 % to 90 % and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by 40 % to 95 %. These degradation rates were 17 % to 30 % and 26 % to 43 % higher, respectively, compared to those observed without S⁰. Consecutive subcultures combined with untargeted metabolomics analysis revealed that bacteria capable of dissimilatory sulfur reduction enhanced the fermentation process. These bacteria provided electrons to the metabolic network, which facilitated the mineralization of petroleum hydrocarbons. Our findings highlight the significant potential of S° for removing hydrophobic organic pollutants in oxygen-free environments, demonstrate the feasibility of integrating adsorption, biodegradation, and electron supply to enhance pollutant removal.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":52198,"journal":{"name":"Water Research X","volume":"26 ","pages":"Article 100290"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11664143/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142883427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Machine learning-driven benchmarking of China's wastewater treatment plant electricity consumption","authors":"Minjian Li ,&nbsp;Chongqiao Tang ,&nbsp;Junhan Gu,&nbsp;Nianchu Li,&nbsp;Ahemaide Zhou,&nbsp;Kunlin Wu,&nbsp;Zhibo Zhang,&nbsp;Hui Huang,&nbsp;Hongqiang Ren","doi":"10.1016/j.wroa.2025.100309","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wroa.2025.100309","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Benchmarking electricity consumption of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is fundamental for sustainable wastewater management, as these facilities have a concomitant electricity-intensive nature along with their pollutant removal and resource recovery functions. Due to the challenge of characterizing influent water quality using traditional methods, satisfactory benchmarks have long been elusive. To overcome the complexity of wastewater compositions, an unsupervised machine learning algorithm, spectral clustering, is introduced to analyze 2,576 WWTPs across China, effectively characterizing influent quality as a single variable and contributing to robust benchmarks with 75 % of the fittings achieving coefficients of determination (R²) &gt;0.85. The benchmarks are established with four critical parameters influencing electricity consumption: scale, influent quality, discharge standard and treatment process. Regional variations of the four parameters and their effects on regional WWTP electricity consumption are elaborated. Results indicate that the overall influent concentration characterized by spectral clustering is the major influencing factor of regional WWTP annual average electricity consumption per unit of volume (UEC). The findings not only enhance understanding of WWTP electricity consumption patterns and provide a scalable model for wider application, but also demonstrate a novel methodology for addressing multi-variable problems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":52198,"journal":{"name":"Water Research X","volume":"26 ","pages":"Article 100309"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143347437","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}