Nitrous oxide formation during simultaneous phosphorus and nitrogen removal in aerobic granular sludge treating different carbon substrates.

The impact of different substrates on N2O dynamics and gene expression of marker enzymes (nirS, nirK and nosZ) involved in denitrifying enhanced biological phosphorus removal (d-EBPR) was investigated. Aerobic granular sludge fed with VFAs led to an anoxic P-uptake (27.7 ± 1.2 mg PO43--P.gVSS-1) and N2O emissions up to 80.7 ± 3.4% N2O-N. A decisive role of Accumulibacter in N2O formation was observed. Dosage of amino acids (12.0 ± 1.2 mg PO43--P.gVSS-1) and glucose (1.5 ± 0.9 mg PO43--P.gVSS-1) as sole substrate did not support d-EBPR activity. Presence of NO2- resulted in higher N2O formation in comparison to nitrate and a nosZ/(nirS + nirK) ratio lower than 0.3. A linear correlation (R2 > 0.95) between the nosZ/(nirS + nirK) ratio and the N2O reductase rate was found only when dosing the same type of substrate. This suggests an interplay between the microbial community composition and different polyhydroxyalkanoates derivatives, when dosing different substrates.

Impact of the substrate composition on enhanced biological phosphorus removal during formation of aerobic granular sludge.

Performance of enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) is often investigated with simple synthetic wastewater containing volatile fatty acids (VFAs). In this study, various (fermentable) substrates, individually and in mixtures, were examined during the application of a granulation strategy. In addition, the microbial community and N2O formation were monitored. Sludge densification was observed in all systems. Stable EBPR, associated with the presence of Accumulibacter and an anaerobic P-release up to 21.9 mgPO43--P.gVSS-1, was only obtained when VFAs were present as sole substrate or in mixture. Systems fed with VFAs were strongly related to the formation of N2O (maximum of 6.25% relative to the total available nitrogen). A moderate anaerobic dissolved organic carbon (DOC) uptake was observed when amino acids (64.27 ± 3.08%) and glucose (75.39 ± 5.79%) as sole carbon source were applied. The substrate/species-specific enrichment of Burkholderiaceae and Saccharimonadaceae respectively, resulted in unstable EBPR in those systems.

Influence of mixed feeding rate in a conventional SBR on biological P-removal and granule stability while treating different industrial effluents.

In this study, the influence of the anaerobic mixed feeding rate on granule stability and reactor performance in a conventional sequencing batch reactor (C-SBR) was investigated while treating various industrial wastewaters. A laboratory-scale SBR fed with malting wastewater rich in phosphorus was operated for approximately 250 days, which was divided into two periods: (I) mixed pulse feed and (II) prolonged mixed feed. Initially, no bio-P activity was observed. However, by lowering the feeding rate biological P-removal was rapidly established and no effect on the aerobic granular sludge (AGS) characteristics was observed. Additionally, to investigate the effect of the mixed feeding rate when treating an industrial effluent with low phosphorus content, i.e. brewery wastewater, a laboratory-scale reactor was operated for approximately 400 days applying different mixed feeding rates. Morphological and molecular analysis indicated that a low substrate concentration promoted the enrichment of anaerobic carbon storing filaments when fed with brewery wastewater. Findings suggest that a prolonged mixed feeding regime can be used as a tool to easily establish bio-P removal in a C-SBR system for the treatment of phosphorus-rich wastewaters. It should however be considered that under P-limiting conditions, enrichment of poly-P storing filaments may occur, possibly due to their higher substrate affinity under anaerobic conditions.

Performance and stability of a dynamically controlled EBPR anaerobic/aerobic granular sludge reactor.

Treatment of rapidly varying wastewaters in anaerobic/aerobic aerobic granular sludge (AGS) systems remains problematic. This study investigated AGS formation and the impact of varying COD and phosphorus concentrations on an enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) AGS SBR with a conductivity based anaerobic and OUR based aerobic dynamically controlled step. Phase 1 investigated the development of AGS. Phase 2 examined the flexibility of the dynamic control strategy and AGS efficiency while rapidly altering the influent composition. AGS was formed successfully in phase 1: the DV50 increased to 285 µm, and the SVI5 and SVI30 decreased to 51 and 40 ml/g respectively. In phase 2 the effluent COD and PO4-P concentration remained low at respectively 58 ±â€¯27 mg/L and 0.53 ±â€¯0.77 mg/L. With an anaerobic DOC uptake efficiency of 98.4 ±â€¯0.9%.

Aeration control strategies to stimulate simultaneous nitrification-denitrification via nitrite during the formation of aerobic granular sludge.

In this study, a sequencing batch reactor (SBR), treating synthetic wastewater (COD/N = 5), was operated in two stages. During stage I, an aeration control strategy based on oxygen uptake rate (OUR) was applied, to accomplish nitrogen removal via nitrite >80%. In stage II, the development of aerobic granular sludge (AGS) was examined while two aeration control strategies (OUR and pH slope) maintained the nitrite pathway and optimized the simultaneous nitrification-denitrification (SND) performance. Stimulation of slow-growing organisms, (denitrifying) polyphosphate-accumulating organisms (D)PAO and (denitrifying) glycogen-accumulating organisms (D)GAO leads to full granulation (at day 200, SVI10 = 47.0 mL/g and SVI30 = 43.1 mL/g). The average biological nutrient removal efficiencies, for nitrogen and phosphorus, were 94.6 and 83.7%, respectively. Furthermore, the benefits of an increased dissolved oxygen concentration (1.0-2.0 mg O2/L) were shown as biomass concentrations increased with approximately 2 g/L, and specific ammonium removal rate and phosphorus uptake rate increased with 33 and 44%, respectively. It was shown that the combination of both aeration phase-length control strategies provided an innovative method to achieve SND via nitrite in AGS.

Performance of aerobic nitrite granules treating an anaerobic pre-treated wastewater originating from the potato industry.

In this study nitrogen removal via nitrite >80% was achieved after approximately 80days in a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) treating pre-treated industrial wastewater originating from the potato industry. Thereafter, SBR performance was investigated during the formation of aerobic nitrite granules (ANG). The first granules appeared after 26days leading to full granulation after 64days. ANG showed excellent settling properties, as the Sludge Volume Index (SVI) went down to 16mL/g and a SVI10/SVI30=1 was obtained. qPCR analysis showed that slow growing organisms, especially polyphosphate accumulating organisms (PAO) were stimulated by an anaerobic feeding strategy. The average nitrogen removal was 95.3% over the entire operational period, and it mainly followed the "nitrite-route". Moreover, with ANG also phosphorus removal efficiencies up to 65.7% could be achieved. However, it has to be mentioned that nitrous oxide was an important denitrification product, which implies some environmental concerns.