Archaea in Wastewater Treatment: Current Research and...

EditorialArchaea in Wastewater Treatment: Current Research andEmerging Technology

Jin Li ,1 Rutao Liu,2 Yu Tao,3 and Guangbin Li 4

1School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Qingdao University, Qingdao 266071, China2School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Qingdao 266237, China3Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK4Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA

Correspondence should be addressed to Jin Li; ljin0532@126.com

Received 7 November 2018; Accepted 7 November 2018; Published 18 November 2018

Copyright © 2018 Jin Li et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, whichpermits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Wastewater treatment is quite imperative for sustainabledevelopment and is critical for an ecosystem and for humanhealth. Typically, wastewater is purified through multipleprocesses of microbial metabolisms. As a result, organicmatters, ammonia, sulfate, and phosphate are eitherremoved or transformed into other forms with lower harmto receiving aqua. We could not see a critical contributionof Archaea to wastewater treatment until recently when welearned that they are responsible for methane production,carbon mineralization, nitrification, and denitrification.Furthermore, a newly discovered denitrifying anaerobicmethane oxidation process, through which methane isoxidized anaerobically, challenges the cliché concept ofarchaea involvement in wastewater treatment. To date,thousands of wastewater treatment facilities are confirmedto have an ecological and functional contribution byArchaea, which also benefits pollutant removal with lowchemical and/or energy input.

Archaea-involved technology is essential for wastewatertreatment by integrating energy production and resourcerecovery into a process for producing clean water. Archaeaplay important roles in converting pollutants into environ-mentally friendly materials. However, compared withbacteria that are widely studied in wastewater treatmentsystems, the characteristics and contributions of archaeaare still not well known. For instance, ecological patternsof archaea in a complex wastewater microbiome are notfully understood, as well as the metabolisms of certainkey archaea. For these reasons, we organized a special

issue with a specific topic on why a comprehensiveunderstanding of the identity, physiology, ecology, andpopulation dynamics of archaea is urgently needed toimprove wastewater treatment efficiency and processstability. It will be possible to find selective principles forregulating certain populations and managing a microbialcommunity. It is entirely necessary to further studyarchaea in wastewater treatment. Such investigations cannot only optimize the current wastewater treatmentprocess but also innovate emerging technology.

Twelve papers, including both reviews and researcharticles, are selected in this Special Issue, covering thetopics about the distributions and contributions ofArchaea in wetlands, oilfield soil, and wastewater-treatingbioreactors. Three review articles are highlighted in thisSpecial Issue. One of the review papers focuses on thecritical role of Archaea in bioremediation from halophilichydrocarbon degradation to acidophilic hydrocarbondegradation in various environments such as oceans, soils,and acid mine drainage. Another article reviewed thecharacteristics and treatment of leachate, and more impor-tantly, pointed out future directions for leachate researchand development. The third review paper overviews thecurrent knowledge on ammonium-oxidizing archaea andammonium-oxidizing bacteria that are involved inwastewater treatment systems.

A wetland is an excellent combination of natural andengineered forms of wastewater treatment. Two researcharticles address bacterial and archaeal microbial community

HindawiArchaeaVolume 2018, Article ID 6973294, 2 pageshttps://doi.org/10.1155/2018/6973294

structures in constructed wetlands, with one focusing onmicrobiome differences between sediments and water, whileanother one focuses on microbial interactions in a pilot-scalewetland that treated saline wastewater from a land-basedAtlantic salmon plant.

A microbial world in oilfield soil is unveiled in thisSpecial Issue by two research articles, one focusing onphysicochemical properties, contents of primary pollutants,and fungal diversity of an aged oil sludge-contaminatedsoil, while another one focuses on soil bacterial communitydiversity around an aging oil sludge in the Yellow RiverDelta of China.

Bioreactor microbiomes are the most popular topics inthis Special Issue, including four research articles. An inte-grated biofilm-membrane bioreactor treating mustardtuber wastewater was reported with a particular focus onmicrobial mechanisms leading to membrane fouling.Another study focused on microbial community and theperformance of an autohydrogenotrophic membrane bio-film reactor for removing nitrate from the wastewater withhigh sulfate concentrations. Anaerobic digestion reactorsare also addressed in two research articles, with one focus-ing on a transitional role of hydrogen-producing acetogensand its application in bioaugmentation, and another onediscussing the bacterial and archaeal roles in an integratedanaerobic fluidized-bed membrane bioreactor treatingsynthetic high-strength benzothiazole wastewater.

With rapid growth in biomonitoring tools, we havelearned more details of archaea-involved bioprocesses thanat any time in history. Following the publication of thiscurrent Special Issue, we expect more exciting break-throughs of Archaea studies in wastewater treatment fromtheory improvement to technology innovation.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interestregarding the publication of this article.

Jin LiRutao Liu

Yu TaoGuangbin Li

2 Archaea

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