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A C T N 2 O (Nitrous oxide, a booster oxidant in rockets) has attracted increasing interest as a means of enhancing energy production, and it can be produced by nitrate (NO 3 -) reduction in NO 3 --loading wastewater. However, conventional denitrification processes are often limited by the lack of bioavailable electron donors. In this study, we innovatively propose a self-photosensitized nonphototrophic Thiobacillus denitrificans (T. denitrificans-CdS) that is capable of NO 3 -reduction and N 2 O production driven by light. The system converted > 72.1 1.1% of the NO 3 --N input to N 2 OeN, and the ratio of N 2 O-N in gaseous products was > 96.4 0.4%. The relative transcript abundance of the genes encoding the denitrifying proteins in T. denitrificans-CdS after irradiation was significantly upregulated. The photoexcited electrons acted as the dominant electron sources for NO 3 -reduction by T. denitrificans-CdS. This study provides the first proof of concept for sustainable and low-cost autotrophic denitrification to generate N 2 O driven by light. The findings also have strong implications for sustainable environmental management because the sunlight-triggered denitrification reaction driven by nonphototrophic microorganisms may widely occur in nature, particularly in a semiconductive mineral-enriched aqueous environment.
Chen et al. (Thu,) studied this question.