Bacterial community structure within an activated sludge reactor added with phenolic compounds.

Biodegradation of phenolic compounds in bioreactors is well documented, but the changes in the bacterial populations dynamics during degradation were not that often. A glass bubble column used as reactor was inoculated with activated sludge, spiked with 2-chlorophenol, phenol and m-cresol after 28 days and maintained for an additional 56 days, while the 16S rRNA gene from metagenomic DNA was monitored. Proteobacteria (68.1%) dominated the inoculum, but the bacterial composition changed rapidly. The relative abundance of Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes decreased from 4.8 and 9.4 to <0.1 and 0.2% respectively, while that of Actinobacteria and TM7 increased from 4.8 and 2.0 to 19.2 and 16.1% respectively. Phenol application increased the relative abundance of Proteobacteria to 94.2% (mostly Brevundimonas 17.6%), while that of Bacteroidetes remained low (1.2%) until day 42. It then increased to 47.3% (mostly Leadbetterella 46.9%) at day 84. It was found that addition of phenolic compounds did not affect the relative abundance of the Alphaproteobacteria initially, but it decreased slowly while that of the Bacteroidetes increased towards the end.

Microbial community structure in aerobic and fluffy granules formed in a sequencing batch reactor supplied with 4-chlorophenol at different settling times.

Toxic compounds, such as 4-chlorophenol (4-CP), which is a common pollutant in wastewater, are removed efficiently from sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) by microorganisms. The bacterial community in aerobic granules formed during the removal of 4-CP in a SBR was monitored for 63days. The SBR reactor was operated with a constant filling and withdrawal time of 7 and 8min and decreasing settling time (30, 5, 3 and 2min) to induce the formation of aerobic granules. During the acclimation period lasting 15days (30min settling time) had a strong effect on the bacterial community. From day 18 onwards, Sphingobium and Comamonadaceae were detected. Rhizobiaceae were dominant from day 24 to day 28 when stable aerobic granules were formed. At day 35, fluffy granules were formed, but the bacterial community structure did not change, despite the changes in the reactor operation to inhibit filamentous bacteria growth. This is the first report on changes in the bacterial community structure of aerobic and fluffy granules during granulation process in a reactor fed with 4-CP and the prediction of its metabolic pathways.