Xiao-mei Lv

A comparative study of the bacterial community in denitrifying and traditional enhanced biological phosphorus removal processes.

Denitrifying phosphorus removal is an attractive wastewater treatment process due to its reduced carbon source demand and sludge minimization potential. Two lab-scale sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) were operated in alternating anaerobic-anoxic (A-A) or anaerobic-oxic (A-O) conditions to achieve denitrifying enhanced biological phosphate removal (EBPR) and traditional EBPR. No significant differences were observed in phosphorus removal efficiencies between A-A SBR and A-O SBR, with phosphorus removal rates being 87.9% and 89.0% respectively. The community structures in denitrifying and traditional EBPR processes were evaluated by high-throughput sequencing of the PCR-amplified partial 16S rRNA genes from each sludge. The results obtained showed that the bacterial community was more diverse in A-O sludge than in A-A sludge. Taxonomy and β-diversity analyses indicated that a significant shift occurred in the dominant microbial community in A-A sludge compared with the seed sludge during the whole acclimation phase, while a slight fluctuation was observed in the abundance of the major taxonomies in A-O sludge. One Dechloromonas-related OTU outside the 4 known Candidatus “Accumulibacter” clades was detected as the main OTU in A-A sludge at the stationary operation, while Candidatus “Accumulibacter” dominated in A-O sludge.

Aerobic methane oxidation coupled to denitrification in a membrane biofilm reactor: Treatment performance and the effect of oxygen ventilation

Aerobic methane-oxidation coupled to denitrification (AME-D) process was successfully achieved in a membrane biofilm reactor (MBfR). PVDF membrane was employed to supply the methane and oxygen for biofilm, which was coexistence of methanotrophs and denitrifier. With a feeding NO3(-)-N of 30 mg/L, up to 97% nitrate could be removed stably. The oxygen ventilation modes impacted the denitrification performance remarkably, resulting in different nitrate removal efficiencies and biofilm microorganism distribution. The biofilm sludge showed a high resistance to the DO inhibition, mainly due to the co-existing methanotroph being capable of utilizing oxygen perferentially within biofilm, and create an anoxic micro-environment. The denitrification of both nitrate and nitrite by biofilm sludge conformed to the Monod equation, and the maximum specific nitrate utilization rate (k) ranged from 1.55 to 1.78 NO3(-)-N/g VSS-d. The research findings should be significant to understand the considerable potential of MBfR as a bioprocess for denitrification.

Metagenomic Analysis of the Sludge Microbial Community in a Lab-Scale Denitrifying Phosphorus Removal Reactor

Denitrifying phosphorus removal is an attractive wastewater treatment process due to its reduced carbon source demand and sludge minimization potential. In the present study, the metagenome of denitrifying phosphorus removal sludge from a lab-scale anaerobic–anoxic SBR was generated by Illumina sequencing to study the microbial community. Compared with the aerobic phosphorus removal sludge, the denitrifying phosphorus removal sludge demonstrated quite similar microbial community profile and microbial diversity with sludge from Aalborg East EBPR WWTP. Proteobacteria was the most dominant phylum; within Proteobacteria, β-Proteobacteria was the most dominant class, followed by α-, γ-, δ-, and ε-Proteobacteria. The genes involved in phosphate metabolism and biofilm formation reflected the selective pressure of the phosphorus removal process. Moreover, ppk sequence from DPAO was outside the Accumulibacter clusters, which suggested different core phosphorus removal bacteria in denitrifying and aerobic phosphorus removal systems. In a summary, putative DPAO might be a novel genus that is closely related between Accumulibacter and Dechloromonas within Rhodocyclus. The microbial community and metabolic profiles achieved in this study will eventually help to improve the understanding of key microorganisms and the entire community in order to improve the phosphorus removal efficiency of EBPR processes.

Activated sludge filterability improvement by nitrifying bacteria abundance regulation in an adsorption membrane bioreactor (Ad-MBR)

Autotrophic nitrifying bacteria have its intrinsic properties including low EPS production, dense colonial structure and slow-growth rate, favoring the sludge filterability improvement. An adsorption-MBR (Ad-MBR) was developed to enrich nitrifier abundance in the MBR chamber by inlet C/N regulation, and its possible positive effect on sludge filterability and underlying mechanisms were investigated. By DNA extraction, PCR amplification and Illumina high-throughput pyrosequencing, the abundance of nitrifying bacteria was accurately quantified. More than 8.29% nitrifier abundance was achieved in Ad-MBR sludge, which was above three times of that in conventional MBR. Regulated C/N ratio and thereafter nitrifier abundance enrichment improved sludge filterability by altering sludge mixture and its supernatant properties, reflected by a good sludge settleability, a low supernatant viscosity and turbidity, a low supernatant organic substances concentration, and a small amount of strong hydrophobic fractional components, thus to profoundly improve sludge filterability and decelerate membrane fouling.

Nitrate removal with lateral flow sulphur autotrophic denitrification reactor

An innovative lateral flow sulphur autotrophic denitrification (LFSAD) reactor was developed in this study; the treatment performance was evaluated and compared with traditional sulphur/limestone autotrophic denitrification (SLAD) reactor. Results showed that nitrite accumulation in the LFSAD reactor was less than 1.0 mg/L during the whole operation. Denitrification rate increased with the increased initial alkalinity and was approaching saturation when initial alkalinity exceeded 2.5 times the theoretical value. Higher influent nitrate concentration could facilitate nitrate removal capacity. In addition, denitrification efficiency could be promoted under an appropriate reflux ratio, and the highest nitrate removal percentage was achieved under reflux ratio of 200%, increased by 23.8% than that without reflux. Running resistance was only about 1/9 of that in SLAD reactor with equal amount of nitrate removed, which was the prominent excellence of the new reactor. In short, this study indicated that the developed reactor was feasible for nitrate removal from waters with lower concentrations, including contaminated surface water, groundwater or secondary effluent of municipal wastewater treatment with fairly low running resistance. The innovation in reactor design in this study may bring forth new ideas of reactor development of sulphur autotrophic denitrification for nitrate-contaminated water treatment.

Reduction of excess sludge in a sequencing batch reactor by lysis-cryptic growth using quick lime for disintegration under low temperature

ABSTRACT In the present study, quick-lime-based thermal-alkaline sludge disintegration (SD) under low temperature was combined with cryptic growth to investigate the excess sludge reduction efficiency in the sequencing batch reactor (SBR). The optimized condition of SD was as follows: T = 80℃, pH = 11, t = 180 min, and the SD rate was about 42.1%. With 65.6% of excess sludge disintegrated and returned to the SBR, the system achieved sludge reduction rate of about 40.1%. The lysis-cryptic growth still obtained satisfactory sludge reduction efficiency despite the comparative low SD rate, which suggested that disintegration rate might not be the decisive factor for cryptic-growth-based sludge reduction. Lysis-cryptic growth did not impact the effluent quality, yet the phosphorus removal performance was enhanced, with effluent total phosphorus concentration decreased by 0.3 mg/L (33%). Crystal compounds of calcium phosphate precipitate were detected in the system by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction, which indicated the phosphorus removal potential of SD using lime. Moreover, endogenous dehydrogenase activity of activated sludge in the lysis-cryptic system was enhanced, which was beneficial for sludge reduction. SD and cryptic growth in the present study demonstrates an economical and effective approach for sludge reduction.

Copper wastewater treatment with high concentration in a two-stage crystallization-based combined process

ABSTRACT Crystallization process in a fluidized bed reactor (FBR) to treat metal wastewaters has been considered as a suitable alternative to the chemical precipitation. However, the process efficiency was high under low initial concentrations, but decreased with the increase of metal concentration due to the unwanted homogeneous precipitation. Aiming at the treatment of heavy metal wastewater with high concentration, a modified FBR (mFBR) was investigated and the two-stage crystallization-based combined process was proposed. mFBR was more suitable for copper removal with high concentration than FBR. The copper concentration was reduced to 9.92 mg/L after the two-stage crystallization, corresponding to the removal rate of 96.6%. After filtration and ion exchange, the copper concentration was further reduced to 0.739 and 0.175 mg/L. During crystallization precipitation, the median size of the silica sand was gradually increased from 0.182 to 0.260 mm. The glossy surface of silica was gradually densely covered with short crystal precipitate, and obvious angularity gradually disappeared due to the deposition of copper precipitate. In addition, the water content of the crystallization precipitate was about 13.7% and much lower than the traditional chemical sludge. Copper precipitate was mainly composed of CuCO3 and Cu(OH)2.