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Solar-enhanced low-temperature biological wastewater treatment

Nature Sustainability volume 8, pages 1048–1057 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Biological wastewater treatment (BWT) is critical to safeguard the aqueous environment. However, enzyme activities in microbial metabolism are inhibited by low temperatures, making BWT implementation in cold environments challenging. Here we propose a strategy to endow BWT facilities with low-temperature operation resilience by integrating photothermal technology with BWT using photothermal carriers (PTCs). Specifically, α-Fe2O3@polyaniline was coated onto a high-conductivity SiC ceramic matrix on a PTC, forming functional partitions for bacterial colonization. The upper layers of the PTCs have an interlaced porous structure and photothermal functions, which provided stable energy conversion and light shielding. The heat conducted downward formed a mesophilic, lightless zone in the lower PTC layers, resulting in high thermal conduction and bioaffinity. Consequently, anammox bacteria, a key biome for sustainable BWT, can be enriched in these PTCs, as evidenced by a 21.4% increase in abundance and a 2.2-fold increase in biomass. With the use of PTCs in a BWT facility under 0.6 kW m−2 illumination, the nitrogen removal performance at low temperature (15 °C) was 5.8 times higher than the case without the use of PTCs. Overall, this work shows how solar energy can be used to enhance the resilience of BWT to low temperatures, improving the applicability of BWT in cold regions.

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Fig. 1: Morphological characteristics of PTCs.
Fig. 2: Photothermal performance of PTCs.
Fig. 3: Reactor nitrogen concentration profiles.
Fig. 4: Microbial adhesion ability of the PTCs.
Fig. 5: Thermotaxis-mediated colonization of bacteria on the PTCs.
Fig. 6: The construction of PTCs and the promotion of nitrogen removal by anammox bacteria.

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Data availability

The raw meta-omics datasets have been deposited in the National Center for Biotechnology Information database under BioProject PRJNA1093580 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/PRJNA1093580). Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

All computer codes generated during this study are available from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundations of China (grant no. 52270016) (S.L.) and National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant no. 2022YFC3203003) (S.L.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, P. R. China

    Jingqi Sun, Yiming Feng, Ru Zheng, Yimin Mao, Qile Zhu, Xiaogang Wu, Lingrui Kong, Kuo Zhang & Sitong Liu

  2. Key Laboratory of Water and Sediment Sciences, Ministry of Education of China, Beijing, P. R. China

    Jingqi Sun, Yiming Feng, Ru Zheng, Yimin Mao, Qile Zhu, Xiaogang Wu, Lingrui Kong & Kuo Zhang

  3. Eco-environment and Resource Efficiency Research Laboratory, Shenzhen, P. R. China

    Sitong Liu

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Contributions

All the authors contributed to the intellectual development of this study, discussed the results and commented on the paper. J.S. and S.L. conceived and designed the study. J.S., Y.F. and Y.M. acquired the data. X.W., L.K., Q.Z. and K.Z. analysed and interpreted the data. J.S., R.Z. and S.L. drafted and revised the article.

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Correspondence to Sitong Liu.

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Sun, J., Feng, Y., Zheng, R. et al. Solar-enhanced low-temperature biological wastewater treatment. Nat Sustain 8, 1048–1057 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01591-z

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