Potential applications and engineering prospects of stimuli-responsive hydrogels in microbial wastewater treatment

With the acceleration of industrialization, the discharge of wastewater containing complex pollutants has increased sharply. Traditional microbial wastewater treatment technologies have obvious limitations in dealing with low-concentration pollutants, regulation of microbial synergy efficiency, and energy consumption control. As a type of three-dimensional hydrophilic polymer network material that can perceive external environmental stimuli (temperature, pH, light, magnetic field, etc.) and produce reversible physical and chemical property changes, stimuli-responsive hydrogels provide a new path for the innovation of microbial wastewater treatment technologies by virtue of their good biocompatibility, microbial loading capacity, stimulus responsiveness and environmental adaptability. This paper summarizes the core characteristics and classification of stimuli-responsive hydrogels, focuses on exploring their potential application scenarios in microbial wastewater treatment (microbial immobilization and flora regulation, targeted adsorption and synergistic degradation of pollutants, intelligent antibacterial and biofilm control, intelligent regulation of wastewater treatment systems), analyzes the engineering bottlenecks in the current application process, and puts forward future engineering development directions combined with the concept of circular economy. It provides a reference for the research and engineering application of this field, and helps the upgrading and resource utilization of water pollution control technologies.