Influence of metabolism and microbiology on organic micropollutants biotransformation in anoxic heterotrophic reactors

There is scarce information about the biotransformation of organic micropollutants (OMPs) under anoxic conditions. In this study, a heterotrophic denitrifying bioreactor was set up to study the fate of several OMPs from metabolic and microbiological points of view. Primary metabolic activity was increased by adding progressively higher nitrogen loading rates during the operation (from 0.075 to 0.4 g N-NO3- L−1 d−1), which resulted in an important shift in the microbial population from a specialized biomass to a more diverse community. Such a change provoked a significant increase in the removal efficiency of erythromycin (ERY), roxithromycin (ROX) and bisphenol-A (BPA), and some bacterial taxa, such as Rhodoplanes, were identified as possible indicators related to the biodegradation of these compounds. The increasing primary metabolic activity in the reactor did not enhance the OMP-specific removal rates, suggesting that the bacterial composition is more influential than cometabolismThis research was supported by the Spanish Research State Agency (AEI) through ANTARES (PID2019–110346RB-C21) project. M. Martinez-Quintela would also like to express his gratitude to the same agency for awarding a research scholarship (BES-2017–080503). All authors belong to the Galician Competitive Research Groups (GRC)_ ED431C-2021/37S

Trends in organic micropollutants removal in secondary treatment of sewage

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Reviews in Environmental Science and Bio/Technology volume. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11157-018-9472-3Organic micropollutants (OMPs) comprise a wide group of substances highly consumed in modern societies. There has been a growing social and scientific interest on OMPs in wastewaters in the twentyfirst century. This research paper has identified the evolution of the research trends in the period 2001–2017 on OMPs fate during secondary wastewater treatment. These trends have moved from a global perspective on the occurrence of OMPs in wastewaters to more specific research focussed on understanding their behaviour during advanced treatment processes. Based on a bibliometric analysis carried out using one of the leading scientific databases, pharmaceuticals have been identified as the main group of OMPs. An increasing number of publications have been released on the fate of pharmaceuticals in wastewater with a growing number of countries involved: from 38 publications belonging to 14 countries in first 5-year period analysed (2001–2005) up to 138 from 42 countries only in the last 2 years (2016–2017). The main operational conditions in wastewater treatment plants influencing the removal of OMPs, as well as the mechanisms involved depending on the physico-chemical characteristics of the substances are reviewed. The paper also considers the role of microbial populations, as well as technological and operational features in OMPs abatement. Finally, a specific section is dedicated to the metabolic and cometabolic biotransformations of some OMPs taking place under heterotrophic, nitrifying and anaerobic conditions, a more novel research trend explored more recentlyThis research was supported by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (AEI) through the Project COMETT (CTQ2016-80847-R). The authors belong to the Galician Competitive Research Group GRC2013-032 and to the CRETUS Strategic Partnership (AGRUP2015/02). All these programs and project are co-funded by FEDER (UE)S

Understanding the sorption and biotransformation of organic micropollutants in innovative biological wastewater treatment technologies

New technologies for wastewater treatment have been developed in the last years based on the combination of biological reactors operating under different redox conditions. Their efficiency in the removal of organic micropollutants (OMPs) has not been clearly assessed yet. This review paper is focussed on understanding the sorption and biotransformation of a selected group of 17 OMPs, including pharmaceuticals, hormones and personal care products, during biological wastewater treatment processes. Apart from considering the role of “classical” operational parameters, new factors such as biomass conformation and particle size, upward velocity applied or the addition of adsorbents have been considered. It has been found that the OMP removal by sorption not only depends on their physico-chemical characteristics and other parameters, such as the biomass conformation and particle size, or some operational conditions also relevant. Membrane biological reactors (MBR), have shown to enhance sorption and biotransformation of some OMPs. The same applies to technologies bases on direct addition of activated carbon in bioreactors. The OMP biotransformation degree and pathway is mainly driven by the redox potential and the primary substrate activity. The combination of different redox potentials in hybrid reactor systems can significantly enhance the overall OMP removal efficiency. Sorption and biotransformation can be synergistically promoted in biological reactors by the addition of activated carbon. The deeper knowledge of the main parameters influencing OMP removal provided by this review will allow optimizing the biological processes in the futureThis research was supported by the Spanish Government (AEI) through the Projects COMETT (CTQ2016-80847-R) and HOLSIA (CTM2013-46750-R). The authors belong to the Galician Competitive Research Group GRC2013-032 and to the CRETUS Strategic Partnership (AGRUP2015/02)S

El uso de prolog en el aula: de lógica a inteligencia artificial

Based on our teaching experience, is evidence of the need to give  ore relevance Prolog in the initial course of Mathematical Logic, showing how through the use of Prolog is possible to develop many ideas in students, among which stand out the understanding of exercises purely procedural and specification for resolving situations declaratively. This learning process can be generated by building a solid knowledge base in both propositional logic, as in first-order logic. This is why it seeks to expose in this article some of the alternatives to using Prolog (and other declarative programming languages like Lisp) for educational purposes, given that it is considered, among others, a programming language, a tool for development of expert systems, a support for teaching programming logic and a tool that gives the student a better approach to artificial intelligence and a possible interconnection between these two areas.Con base en nuestra experiencia docente, se evidencia la necesidad de darle a Prolog más relevancia en el curso inicial de Lógica Matemática, mostrando cómo a través del uso de Prolog es posible desarrollar muchas ideas en el alumno, entre las que se destacan el entendimiento de ejercicios netamente procedimentales y la especificación para resolver situaciones en forma declarativa. Este proceso de enseñanza puede generarse construyendo una base sólida de conocimiento tanto en lógica proposicional, como en lógica de primer orden. Es por esto que se busca exponer en este artículo algunas de las alternativas para emplear Prolog (y otros lenguajes de programación declarativa como Lisp) con fines educativos, teniendo en cuenta que éste es considerado, entre otros, un lenguaje de programación, una herramienta de desarrollo de sistemas expertos, un soporte para la enseñanza de programación lógica y una herramienta que le brinda al alumno un mejor acercamiento a la Inteligencia Artificial y una posible interconexión entre estas dos áreas

A pre-Rodinian ophiolite involved in the Variscan suture of Galicia (Cabo Ortegal Complex, NW Spain)

U–Pb dating of zircons from a metagabbro of the Purrido amphibolitic unit (Cabo Ortegal Complex, NW Iberian Massif) yielded an age of 1159 ± 39 Ma, interpreted to approximate the crystallization age of the gabbroic protolith. Considering the arc affinity of the metagabbroic rocks, the unit is interpreted as a pre-Rodinian ophiolite developed in a back-arc setting. It is suggested that the ophiolite was obducted over the West African terranes during the assembly of Rodinia. There, this terrane remained tectonically stable and facing an ocean for a long time, and eventually became part of the Gondwanan margin. The ophiolite was finally involved in the Variscan suture of Galicia where it is sandwiched between Palaeozoic rocks. The Purrido unit is so far the only example of a Mesoproterozoic ophiolite in the European Variscan belt, where pre-Neoproterozoic rocks are very scarce and restricted to small exposures

An innovative wastewater treatment technology based on UASB and IFAS for cost-efficient macro and micropollutant removal

An innovative process based on the combination of a UASB reactor and an IFAS system is proposed in order to combine different redox conditions and biomass conformations to promote a high microbial diversity. The objective of this configuration is to enhance the biological removal of organic micropollutants (OMPs) as well as to achieve the abatement of nitrogen by using the dissolved methane as an inexpensive electron donor. Results showed high removals of COD (93%) and dissolved methane present in the UASB effluent (up to 85%) was biodegraded by a consortium of aerobic methanotrophs and heterotrophic denitrifiers. Total nitrogen removal decreased slightly along the operation (from 44 to 33%), depending on the availability of electron donor, biomass concentration, and configuration (floccules and biofilm). A high removal was achieved in the hybrid system (>80%) for 6 of the studied OMPs. Sulfamethoxazole, trimethoprim, naproxen, and estradiol were readily biotransformed under anaerobic conditions, whereas ibuprofen or bisphenol A were removed in the anoxic-aerobic compartment. Evidence of the cometabolic biotransformation of OMPs has been found, such as the influence of nitrification activity on the removal of bisphenol A, and of the denitrification activity on ethinylestradiol removalThis research was supported by the Spanish Government (AEI) through the Project COMETT (CTQ2016-80847-R). The authors belong to the Galician Competitive Research GroupGRC-ED431C 2017/29 and to the CRETUS Strategic Partnership (AGRUP2015/02). All these programs and project are co-funded by FEDER (UE)S

Two-stage collision: Exploring the birth of Pangea in the Variscan terranes.

The Variscan suture exposed in NW Iberia contains a stack of terranes including two allochthonous units with continental affinity and Gondwanan provenance (Upper and Basal Units), separated by an ophiolite belt where the most common units show protolith ages at c. 395 Ma. Recent Lu–Hf zircon data obtained from these ophiolites indicate interaction between the gabbroic magmas and old continental crust. Hence, the ophiolites could not have originated in a deep ocean basin associated with a mature mid-ocean-ridge or intraoceanic subduction. The tectonothermal evolution of the continental terranes bounding the suture zone records two consecutive events of deep subduction. The Upper Units record an initial high-P/ultra-high-P metamorphic event that occurred before 400–390 Ma, while the Basal Units were affected by a second high-P/low-to-intermediate-T metamorphic event dated at c. 370 Ma. Continental subduction affected the most external margin of Gondwana and developed in a setting of dextral convergencewith Laurussia. Development of the two high-P events alternated with the opening of an ephemeral oceanic basin, probably of pull-apart type, in Early Devonian times. This ephemeral oceanic domain is suggested as the setting for the protoliths of the most common ophiolites involved in the Variscan suture. Current ideas for the assembly of Pangea advocate a single collisional event between Gondwana and Laurussia in the Carboniferous. However, the new evidence from the allochthonous terranes of the Variscan belt suggests a more complex scenario for the assembly of the supercontinent, with an interaction between the colliding continental margins that started earlier and lasted longer than previously considered. Based onmodern analogs of continental interaction, the development of complex collisions, as here suggested for Gondwana and Laurussia during the assembly of Pangea, could have been the norm rather than the exception throughout Earth history

Ranking the impact of human health disorders on gut metabolism: Systemic lupus erythematosus and obesity as study cases

Multiple factors have been shown to alter intestinal microbial diversity. It remains to be seen, however, how multiple collective pressures impact the activity in the gut environment and which, if any, is positioned as a dominant driving factor determining the final metabolic outcomes. Here, we describe the results of a metabolome-wide scan of gut microbiota in 18 subjects with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and 17 healthy control subjects and demonstrate a statistically significant difference (p < 0.05) between the two groups. Healthy controls could be categorized (p < 0.05) based on their body mass index (BMI), whereas individuals with SLE could not. We discuss the prevalence of SLE compared with BMI as the dominant factor that regulates gastrointestinal microbial metabolism and provide plausible explanatory causes. Our results uncover novel perspectives with clinical relevance for human biology. In particular, we rank the importance of various pathophysiologies for gut homeostasis.The present investigation was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the ERA NET PathoGenoMics2 program, grant number 0315441A. This work was further funded by grants BFU2008-04501-E, BFU2008-04398-E, SAF2009-13032-C02-01, SAF2012-31187 and CSD2007-00005, BIO2011-25012, AGL2010-14952 and AGL2006-11697/ALI from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, and Prometeo/2009/092 from Generalitat Valenciana (Spain). The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)