Insight into the effects of biological treatment on the binding properties of copper onto dissolved organic matter derived from coking wastewater

Biological treatment can remove more than 89.8% of total organic carbon (TOC) and 94.4% of fluorescent dissolved organic matter (DOM) in the coking wastewater, thereby affecting the migration, transformation and bioavailability and binding characteristics of heavy metals (HMs). The results of parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) show that protein-like materials accounted for 97.53% in the coking wastewater DOM, a large number of humic-like substances are produced and accounted for more than 55.40% after biological treatment. A new spectral data processing method, the 1/n-th power transformation after two-dimensional correlated spectroscopy (2D-COS) in combination with synchronous fluorescence spectra (SFS), can identify small features obscured by strong peaks, and reveal more binding sites as well as preserve the sequential order information. The result indicates that the preferential bonding of Cu(II) is at 306 nm (protein-like) for coking wastewater DOM, and at 514 nm (humic-like) for effluent DOM. The C−O group of esters and alcohols can preferentially complexate with Cu(II) in the coking wastewater and effluent DOM. The log KM values of PARAFAC components with Cu(II) are in the range of 3.59–5.06 for coking wastewater DOM, and in the range of 4.80–5.64 for the effluent DOM. Log KM values for protein-like materials with Cu(II) are higher than these for fulvic- and humic-like substances. Humic-like substances can form more stable complexes with Cu(II) in the effluent DOM. Biological treatment increases the chemical stability of DOM-Cu(II) complexes, thereby further reducing the environmental risk of Cu(II). [Display omitted] •Protein-like materials play a crucial role in coking wastewater DOM.•Biological treatment can affect the complexation of DOM and HMs.•DOM-Cu(II) shows higher chemical stability in the effluent.•The 1/n-th power transformation can reveal more binding sites.