Effects of superficial gas velocity on the performance of an air-lift internal circulation partial nitrification-anammox granular sludge reactor.

The airlift internal circulation reactor for partial nitrification-anammox (PNA-ALR) has the advantages of a small footprint, high mass transfer efficiency, and the ease of formation of granular sludge, thus making it an effective biological treatment for ammonia-containing wastewater. Although superficial gas velocity (SGV) is an essential parameter for PNA-ALR, it is unclear how the magnitude of SGV impacts nitrogen removal performance. In this study, the nitrogen removal efficiencies of five PNA-ALRs with different SGV were measured during feeding with synthetic municipal wastewater. At an optimal SGV of 2.35 cm s-1, the PNA-ALR consistently maintained the total inorganic nitrogen (TIN) removal efficiency at 76.31% and the effluent TIN concentration was less than 10 mg L-1. By increasing or decreasing the SGV, the nitrogen removal efficiency decreased to a range between 30% and 50%. At lower SGV, the dead space in the PNA-ALR was increased by 21.15%, and the feast/famine ratio of sludge increased to greater than 0.5, which caused a disruption in the structure, and a large loss of, granular sludge. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations showed operation at a higher SGV, resulting in excessive shear stress of 3.25 N m-2 being generated from bubble rupture in the degassing section. Fluorescent staining determined a decrease of 26.5% in viable bacteria. These results have improved our understanding of the effects of SGV on a PNA-ALR during mainstream wastewater treatment.

Bioaugmentation of intertidal sludge enhancing the development of salt-tolerant aerobic granular sludge.

Three parallel bioreactors were operated with different inoculation of activated sludge (R1), intertidal sludge (ItS) (R2), and ItS-added AS (R3), respectively, to explore the effects of ItS bioaugmentation on the formation of salt-tolerant aerobic granular sludge (SAGS) and the enhancement of COD removal performance. The results showed that compared to the control (R1-2), R3 promoted a more rapid development of SAGS with a cultivation time of 25 d. Following 110-day cultivation, R3 exhibited a higher granular diameter of 1.3 mm and a higher hydrophobic aromatic protein content than that in control. Compared to the control, the salt-tolerant performance in R3 was also enhanced with the COD removal efficiency of 96.4% due to the higher sludge specific activity of 14.4 g·gVSS-1·d-1 and the salinity inhibition constant of 49.3 gL-1. Read- and genome-resolved metagenomics together indicated that a higher level of tryptophan/tyrosine synthase gene (trpBD, tyrBC) and enrichment of the key gene hosts Rhodobacteraceae, Marinicella in R3, which was about 5.4-fold and 1.4-fold of that in control, could be the driving factors of rapid development of SAGS. Furthermore, the augmented salt-tolerant potential in R3 could result from that R1 was dominated by Rhodospirillaceae, Bacteroidales, which carried more trehalose synthase gene (otsB, treS), while the dominant members Rhodobacteraceae, Marinicella in R3 were main contributors to the glycine betaine synthase gene (ectC, betB, gbsA). This study could provide deeper insights into the rapid development and improved salt-tolerant potential of SAGS via bioaugmentation of intertidal sludge, which could promote the application of hypersaline wastewater treatment.

Metagenomics and metatranscriptomics uncover the microbial community associated with high S0 production in a denitrifying desulfurization granular sludge reactor.

The denitrification desulfurization process is a promising technology for elemental sulfur (S0) production from sulfide containing wastewater. However, the microbial community associated with high S0 production still is not well studied. This study describes an efficient denitrification S0 production bioreactor based on inoculation with anaerobic granular sludge. At an optimal S/N molar ratio of 7:2, 80 % of the influent sulfide was transformed to high quality elemental sulfur with a purity of 92.5% while the total inorganic nitrogen removal efficiency was stable at ∼80%. Metatranscriptomic analysis found that community expression of the gene encoding the sulfide-quinone reductase (SQR) was 10-fold greater than that of the flavocytochrome-c sulfide dehydrogenase subunit B (fccB). Moreover, the expression level of SQR was also significantly higher than the Dsr gene encoding for dissimilatory sulfate reductase, which encodes a critical S0 oxidation enzyme. Metagenomic binning analysis confirmed that sulfide-oxidizing bacteria (SOB) utilizing SQR were common in the community and most likely accounted for high S0 production. An unexpected enrichment in methanogens and high expression activity of bacteria carrying out Stickland fermentation as well as in other bacteria with reduced genomes indicated a complex community supporting stable sulfide oxidation to S0, likely aiding in performance stability. This study establishes this treatment approach as an alternative biotechnology for sulfide containing wastewater treatment and sheds light on the microbial interactions associated with high S0 production.

Micro-nano aeration is a promising alternative for achieving high-rate partial nitrification.

Biological nitrogen removal is the most prevalent wastewater nitrogen removal process but nitrification limits the rate of the whole process mainly due to the low efficiency of oxygen transfer. In this study, clean-water oxygenation tests, batch tests, long-term operational tests and metagenomic analyses were applied to assess the effects of micro-nano aeration on nitrification. The oxygen transfer coefficient (KLa), oxygen transfer rate (OTR) and oxygen transfer efficiency (OTE) were determined to be 0.56 min-1, 0.36 kg·m-3·h-1 and 71.43%, respectively during micro-nano-bubble aeration. Impressively, these values were 15 times greater than those of conventional aeration. The results of batch tests and long-term operation experiments found that the ammonia removal rate of micro-nano aeration was 3.2-fold that of conventional aeration. The energy cost for micro-nano aeration was calculated to be 3694.5 mg NH4+-N/kW·h, a 50% energy saving in comparison to conventional aeration. In addition, the nitrite accumulation ratio in the Micro-nano (MN) reactor was 1.5 that of the Conventional (CV) reactor. Metagenomic analysis showed that after long-term operation in micro-nano aeration, the abundances of genes encoding ammonia monooxygenase (amoA) and hydroxylamine oxidoreductase (hao) was more than 8-fold and 4-fold of those in conventional aeration, respectively. The abundance of the gene encoding nitrite oxidoreductase (nxrA) was similar in both reactors. Read taxonomy revealed that abundance of AOB-Nitrosomonas increased significantly when using micro-nano aeration, while abundance of NOB-Nitrospira abundance was similar in both reactors. The results of this study indicated that the micro-nano aeration process will increase the ammonia oxidation performance by enhancing oxygen transfer but was also shown to be beneficial for enhancing partial nitrification by specific enrichment of ammonia oxidizing bacteria. This latter result demonstrates the potential benefits of the micro-nano aeration process as an alternative approach to establishing high-rate partial nitrification.