The fate of nitrification and urease inhibitors in simulated bank filtration.

The application of nitrification and urease inhibitors (NUI) in conjunction with nitrogen (N) fertilizers improves the efficiency of N fertilizers. However, NUI are frequently found in surface waters through leaching or surface runoff. Bank filtration (BF) is considered as a low-cost water treatment system providing high quality water by efficiently removing large amounts of organic micropollutants from surface water.

Reevaluation of colorimetric iron determination methods commonly used in geomicrobiology.

The ferrozine and phenanthroline colorimetric assays are commonly applied for the determination of ferrous and total iron concentrations in geomicrobiological studies. However, accuracy of both methods depends on slight changes in their protocols, on the investigated iron species, and on geochemical variations in sample conditions. Therefore, we tested the performance of both methods using Fe(II)((aq)), Fe(III)((aq)), mixed valence solutions, synthetic goethite, ferrihydrite, and pyrite, as well as microbially-formed magnetite and a mixture of goethite and magnetite.