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Updated: Jan 7, 2026

Bioprospecting of Extremophilic Microorganisms to Address Environmental Pollution
Published on: December 30, 2021
Ultra-high temperature bacterial agents enhance heavy metal passivation and antibiotic degradation in compost
Zifang Chi1, Shengyi Zhang1, Yuru Li1
1Key Lab of Groundwater Resources and Environment, Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun, China.
Abstract:
The co-contamination of heavy metals and antibiotics in livestock manure presents a significant environmental challenge. This study developed an integrated ultra-high-temperature (UHT) composting process to address this issue. Through an L9(34) orthogonal experiment, we optimized key parameters and identified 60% moisture content, 25:1 carbon-to-nitrogen (C/N) ratio, and 10% (w/w) activated carbon addition as the optimal combination, with activated carbon being the most influential factor. In pilot-scale validation, bioaugmentation with a specialized UHT microbial consortium (UHTMC) at 1.0% dosage achieved a peak temperature of 84.3 °C, maintaining temperatures above 70 °C for 15 days and above 50 °C for 28 days, which significantly surpassed the control. This enhanced thermophilic profile drove superior co-removal performance: 56.0% copper (Cu) and 57.3% zinc (Zn) passivation rates, representing improvements of 11.3 and 11.1 percentage points over the control, respectively, and near-complete degradation (> 99.4%) of tetracycline (TC), oxytetracycline (OTC), and chlortetracycline (CTC). This work demonstrates that bioaugmented UHT composting synergistically enhances microbial activity, effectively passivates heavy metals, and completely degrades antibiotics, providing an efficient resource-oriented strategy for treating co-contaminated solid waste.
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