Nitrogen removal and microbial characteristics in CANON biofilters fed with different ammonia levels

Combination of sulfide-driven partial denitrification with anammox enhanced by zeolite powder for autotrophic nitrogen and sulfide removal from wastewater

Sulfide-driven partial denitrification and anaerobic ammonia oxidizing (anammox) (SPDA) is a high-efficiency technology to achieve simultaneous nitrogen and sulfide removal. Nitrite accumulation from sulfide-driven partial denitrification is the key to achieve SPDA. Zeolite powder was added to strengthen the competition of anammox bacteria against nitrite. The nitrogen removal rate (NRR) and partial denitrification efficiency in reactor was 5.18 kg-N m-3d-1 and 92.3% during 180 days of operation, higher than those without zeolite powder, indicating an improving contribution of zeolite powder. Metabolomics analysis revealed zeolite powder addition enhanced the metabolisms of amino acids, nicotinate and porphyrin through increasing glutamate content, and improved EPS secretion, heme c content and particle size. Besides, high ammonia enriched by zeolite powder was conducive to improve anammox activity and NRR. This study provides the metabolic insights into the mechanism of zeolite powder enhancing SPDA, which is meaningful towards overcoming the limitations in practical application of SDPA.

Effect of Increasing C/N Ratio on Performance and Microbial Community Structure in a Membrane Bioreactor with a High Ammonia Load

Herein, the responses of the operational performance of a membrane bioreactor (MBR) with a high ammonium-nitrogen (NH4+-N) load and microbial community structure to increasing carbon to nitrogen (C/N) ratios were studied. Variation in the influent C/N ratio did not affect the removal efficiencies of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and NH4+-N but gradually abated the ammonia oxidization activity of sludge. The concentration of the sludge in the reactor at the end of the process increased four-fold compared with that of the seed sludge, ensuring the stable removal of NH4+-N. The increasing influent COD concentration resulted in an elevated production of humic acids in soluble microbial product (SMP) and accelerated the rate of membrane fouling. High-throughput sequencing analysis showed that the C/N ratio had selective effects on the microbial community structure. In the genus level, Methyloversatilis, Subsaxibacter, and Pseudomonas were enriched during the operation. However, the relative abundance of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB) involved in nitrification declined gradually and were decreased by 86.54 and 90.17%, respectively, with influent COD increasing from 0 to 2000 mg/L. The present study offers a more in-depth insight into the control strategy of the C/N ratio in the operation of an MBR with a high NH4+-N load.

The occurrence and role of Nitrospira in nitrogen removal systems

Application of the modern microbial techniques changed the paradigm about the microorganisms performing nitrification. Numerous investigations recognized representatives of the genus Nitrospira as a key and predominant nitrite-oxidizing bacteria in biological nutrient removal systems, especially under low dissolved oxygen and substrate conditions. The recent discovery of Nitrospira capable of performing complete ammonia oxidation (comammox) raised a fundamental question about the actual role of Nitrospira in both nitrification steps. This review summarizes the current knowledge about morphological, physiological and genetic characteristics of the canonical and comammox Nitrospira. Potential implications of comammox for the functional aspects of nitrogen removal have been highlighted. The complex meta-analysis of literature data was applied to identify specific individual variables and their combined interactions on the Nitrospira abundance. In addition to dissolved oxygen and influent nitrogen concentrations, temperature and pH may play an important role in enhancing or suppressing the Nitrospira activity.

Activated sludge bacterial communities of typical wastewater treatment plants: distinct genera identification and metabolic potential differential analysis

To investigate the differences in activated sludge microbial communities of different wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and understand their metabolic potentials, we sampled sludge from every biological treatment unit of 5 full-scale waste water treatment systems in 3 typical Chinese municipal WWTPs. The microbial communities and overall metabolic patterns were not only affected by influent characteristics but also varied between different biological treatment units. Distinct genera in different wastewater treatment systems were identified. The important microorganisms in domestic sewage treatment systems were unclassified SHA-20, Caldilinea, Dechloromonas, and unclassified genera from Rhodospirilaceae and Caldilineaceae. The important microorganisms in dyeing wastewater treatment systems were Nitrospira, Sphingobacteriales, Thiobacillus, Sinobacteraceae and Comamonadaceae. Compared with the obvious differences in microbial community composition, the metabolic potential showed no significant differences.

Structure and function of the microbial consortia of activated sludge in typical municipal wastewater treatment plants in winter

To better understand the relationship between the environmental variables and microbial communities of activated sludge, we took winter samples from different biological treatment units (anaerobic, oxic, etc) from the WWTP's of a number of Chinese cities. Differences in influent organic components and activated sludge microbial communities were identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and high-throughput sequencing technology, respectively. Liquid nitrogen grinding pretreatment of samples was found to aid in the obtaining of a more bio-diversified sample. Influent type and dissolved oxygen concentration influenced the activated sludge microbial community structure. Nitrospira, Caldilineaceae and Anaerolineaceae were highly related to domestic wastewater treatment systems, whereas Thauera was the most abundant putative refractory aromatic hydrocarbon decomposer found in industrial wastewater treatment systems. Within the influent composition, we speculate that Thauera, Macellibacteroides and Desulfomicrobium are the key functional genera of the anaerobic environment of the textile dyeing industry wastewater treatment systems, whilst Thauera and Thiobacillus are key functional microbes in fine chemical wastewater treatment systems.

Treatment performance, nitrous oxide production and microbial community under low-ammonium wastewater in a CANON process

To investigate the characteristics of anaerobic ammonia oxidation for treating low-ammonium wastewater, a continuous-flow completely autotrophic nitrogen removal over nitrite (CANON) biofilm reactor was studied. At a temperature of 32 ± 1 °C and a pH between 7.5 and 8.2, two operational experiments were performed: the first one fixed the hydraulic retention time (HRT) at 10 h and gradually reduced the influent ammonium concentrations from 210 to 50 mg L^-1; the second one fixed the influent ammonium concentration at 30 mg L^-1 and gradually decreased the HRT from 10 to 3 h. The results revealed that the total nitrogen removal efficiency exceeded 80%, with a corresponding total nitrogen removal rate of 0.26 ± 0.01 kg N m^-3 d^-1 at the final low ammonium concentration of 30 mg L^-1. Small amounts of nitrous oxide (N₂O) up to 0.015 ± 0.004 kg m^-3 d^-1 at the ammonium concentration of 210 mg L^-1 were produced in the CANON process and decreased with the decrease in the influent ammonium loads. High-throughput pyrosequencing analysis indicated that the dominant functional bacteria 'Candidatus Kuenenia' under high influent ammonium levels were gradually succeeded by Armatimonadetes_gp5 under low influent ammonium levels.

Simultaneous nitrification/denitrification and stable sludge/water separation achieved in a conventional activated sludge process with severe filamentous bulking

This study investigated the long-term treatment performance of a conventional activated sludge (AS) process operating at a microaerobic DO level (0.5-1.0mg·L^-1) in the aeration tank and a long settling time of >10h in the clarification tank for sewage treatment. The microaerobic DO conditions led to severe sludge bulking. However, good sludge/water separation and excellent pollutant removal performance (COD, 95±2%; NH₄⁺-N, 99±1%; and TN, 69±6%) were stably achieved in the microaerobic AS system during its 150days of continuous operation. This is the first report to demonstrate that a long settling time effectively overcame the effect of severe filamentous bulking in conventional AS process, and that microaerobic DO conditions achieved excellent simultaneous nitrification and denitrification reactions in the aeration tank. The process characteristics of the microaerobic AS system differed substantially from those existing biological denitrification processes, including A/O, CANON, and OLAND processes.

Response of performance and ammonia oxidizing bacteria community to high salinity stress in membrane bioreactor with elevated ammonia loading

Effect of elevated ammonia loading rate (ALR) and increasing salinity on the operation of membrane bioreactor (MBR) and the response of microbial community were investigated. Results showed that MBR started up with 1% NaCl stress achieved amazing nitrification performance at high salinity up to 4% when treating wastewater containing 1000mg/L NH(+)4-N. Further increasing salinity to 7% led to failure of MBR unrecoverably. Steep decline of sludge activity contributed to the extremely worse performance. High-throughput sequencing analysis showed that both ALR and salinity had selective effects on the microbial community structure. In genus level, Methyloversatilis and Maribacter were enriched during the operation. Survival of salt-resistant microbes contributed to the rising of richness and diversity at 2% and 4% NaCl stress. Analysis of amoA-gene-based cloning revealed Nitrosomonas marina are chiefly responsible for catalyzing ammonia oxidation in high ALR at high salinity stress.

Performance of one-stage autotrophic nitrogen removal in a biofilm reactor with low C/N ratio

Wastewater with C/N ratios ranging from 1.00 to 0.33 caused by a gradual increase in influent NH4+-N concentration was used to evaluate the performance of the one-stage nitrogen removal process in a biofilm reactor. The system was operated for 197 days under chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration of 250 mg L(-1) and influent NH4+-N concentrations ranging from 250 to 750 mg L(-1). The effects of the C/N ratio and dissolved oxygen (DO) on nitrogen removal were evaluated at different influent C/N ratios and DO concentrations, respectively. The microbial composition of the system was examined by scanning electron microscopy and polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, and the relative contribution of anaerobic ammonium oxidation (ANAMMOX) to nitrogen removal was assessed by calculating the average rates of ANAMMOX and denitrification in batch experiments. Results showed that the removal efficiencies of total nitrogen (TN), NH4+-N and COD were 74-97%, 75-99% and 64-97%, respectively. The C/N ratio had a significant influence on nitrogen removal efficiency when it was decreased from 1.00 to 0.70, but no significant change was observed when it was reduced from 0.70 to 0.33. DO also correlated with the NH4+-N concentration in the influent, and 3.0 mg L(-1) was found to be a suitable concentration for the influent NH4+-N concentration of 450±5 mg L(-1). Analysis of microbial composition of the system revealed that biofilm and activated sludge were mainly composed of aerobic ammonium-oxidizing bacteria, anaerobic ammonium-oxidizing bacteria (AnAOB) and denitrifying bacteria. Activity tests suggested that AnAOB played an important role in the one-stage autotrophic nitrogen removal process, contributing to about 52.7% of total TN removal via ANAMMOX.

Stability and nitrite-oxidizing bacteria community structure in different high-rate CANON reactors

In completely autotrophic nitrogen removal over nitrite (CANON) process, the bioactivity of nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB) should be effectively inhibited. In this study, the stability of four high-rate CANON reactors and the effect of free ammonia (FA) and organic material on NOB community structure were investigated using DGGE. Results suggested that with the increasing of FA, the ratio of total nitrogen removal to nitrate production went up gradually, while the biodiversity of Nitrobacter-like NOB and Nitrospira-like NOB both decreased. When the CANON reactor was transformed to simultaneous partial nitrification, anammox and denitrification (SNAD) reactor by introducing organic material, the denitrifiers and aerobic heterotrophic bacteria would compete nitrite or oxygen with NOB, which then led to the biodiversity decreasing of both Nitrobacter-like NOB and Nitrospira-like NOB. The distribution of Nitrobacter-like NOB and Nitrospira-like NOB were evaluated, and finally effective strategies for suppressing NOB in CANON reactors were proposed.