TY - JOUR A1 - Malk, Konrad A1 - Riedel, Ramona A1 - Hinz, Christoph A1 - Fischer, Thomas A1 - Martienssen, Marion T1 - Adsorption of phosphonates to iron- or aluminum-based flocculants in wastewater treatment JF - Water N2 - In this study, we investigated the impact of varying iron (Fe) and aluminum (Al) contents on the adsorption of phosphonates to activated sludge. Phosphonates originating from household applications account for up to 40% of the non-reactive dissolved phosphorus in domestic sewage treatment plants and thus can contribute to the eutrophication of water bodies. Although these substances are not readily degradable, substantial quantities, ranging from 40% to more than 90%, are removed by sludge adsorption. The results demonstrate a strong correlation between the adsorption of aminophosphonates and the Fe3+ content of the sludge. The maximum phosphonate loadings were 5.94 mmol g−1 Fe3+ for ATMP, 4.94 mmol g−1 Fe3+ for EDTMP, 4.74 mmol g−1 Fe3+ for DTPMP, and 2.25 mmol g−1 Fe3+ for glyphosate. In contrast to pure ferric hydride flocs, the adsorption of phosphonates was approximately threefold higher when the hydroxides were located within activated sludge flocs. It is concluded that native sludge flocs provide larger iron surfaces than ferric hydroxide alone. Based on the weight of the adsorbents, aluminum salts were four times less efficient than ferric salts. In sludge without ferric or aluminum hydroxides, phosphonate adsorption was negligible. KW - Adsorption KW - Activated sludge KW - Ferrous oxide KW - Phosphonates KW - Wastewater treatment Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/w18010116 SN - 2073-4441 VL - 18 IS - 1 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kästner, Karl A1 - Caviedes-Voullième, Daniel A1 - Hinz, Christoph T1 - Formation of spatial vegetation patterns in heterogeneous environments JF - PLOS One N2 - Functioning of many resource-limited ecosystems is facilitated through spatial patterns. Patterns can indicate ecosystems productivity and resilience, but the interpretation of a pattern requires good understanding of its structure and underlying biophysical processes. Regular patterns are understood to form autogenously through self-organization, for which exogenous heterogeneities are negligible. This has been corroborated by reaction-diffusion models which generate highly regular patterns in idealized homogeneous environments. However, such model-generated patterns are considerably more regular than natural patterns, which indicates that the concept of autogenous pattern formation is incomplete. Models can generate patterns which appear more natural when they incorporate exogenous random spatial heterogeneities (noise), such as microtopography or spatially varying soil properties. However, the mechanism through which noise influences the pattern formation has not been explained so far. Recalling that irregular patterns can form through stochastic processes, we propose that regular patterns can form through stochastic processes as well, where spatial noise is filtered through scale-dependent biophysical feedbacks. First, we demonstrate that the pattern formation in nonlinear reaction-diffusion models is highly sensitive to noise. We then propose simple stochastic processes which can explain why and how random exogenous heterogeneity influences the formation of regular and irregular patterns. Finally, we derive linear filters which reproduce the spatial structure and visual appearance of natural patterns well. Our work contributes to a more holistic understanding of spatial pattern formation in self-organizing ecosystems. KW - Linear filters KW - Anisotropy KW - Autocorrelation KW - Bandpass filters KW - Nonlinear systems Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0324181 SN - 1932-6203 VL - 20 IS - 5 PB - PLOS CY - San Francisco ER -