Abstract
Cost-efficient and environmentally friendly treatment of hydraulic fracturing effluents is of great significance for the sustainable development of shale gas exploration. We investigated the synergistic effects of plant-microbial treatment of shale gas fracturing waste fluid. The results showed that illumination wavelength and temperature are direct drivers for microbial treatment effects of CODCr and BOD5, while exhibit little effects on nitrogen compounds, TDS, EC, and SS removals as well as microbial species and composition. Plant-microbial synergism could significantly enhance the removal of pollutants compared with removal efficiency without plant enhancement. Additionally, the relative abundance and structure of microorganisms in the hydraulic fracturing effluents greatly varied with the illumination wavelength and temperature under plant-microbial synergism. 201.24 g water dropwort and 435 mg/L activated sludge with illumination of 450–495 nm (blue) at 25 °C was proved as the best treatment condition for shale gas fracturing waste fluid samples, which showed the highest removal efficiency of pollutants and the lowest algal toxicity in treated hydraulic fracturing effluents. The microbial community composition (36.73% Flavobacteriia, 25.01% Gammaproteobacteria, 18.55% Bacteroidia, 9.3% Alphaproteobacteria, 4.1% Cytophagia, and 2.83% Clostridia) was also significantly different from other treatments. The results provide a potential technical solution for improved treatment of shale gas hydraulic fracturing effluents.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this work. All the funding body play a major role in the collection of research samples and analysis and testing of samples.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 41472124], PetroChina Innovation Foundation [grant numbers 2015D-5006-0210, 2016D-5007-0702], the Yangtze University Outstanding Doctoral and Master Degree Thesis Cultivation Program Fund [grant number YS2018052], the Yangtze Talents Fund [grant number 2020-2023], the Hubei Provincial Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program [grant number S202010489042], and the Yangtze University Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship training program [grant number 2019418].
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MH: supervision; project administration; funding acquisition; resources; conceptualization; methodology; writing—review and editing
YL: writing—review and editing
BS: formal analysis; investigation; data curation; visualization; writing—original draft
LT: resources and investigation
WJC, XT, and JLL: investigation
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Highlights
• Combination of 201.24 g water dropwort and 435 mg/L activated sludge showed best treatment efficiency.
• Illumination and temperature were important drivers for pollutant removal and microbial abundance.
• Blue light illumination at 25 °C was the best condition for enhancing treatment of FW.
• Plant-microbial synergism is proven to be an effective treatment method for FW.
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Shao, B., Tan, X., Li, JL. et al. Enhanced treatment of shale gas fracturing waste fluid through plant-microbial synergism. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 29919–29930 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12830-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12830-z