Inhibition of anammox by sludge thermal hydrolysis and metagenomic insights

Zaoli Gu; Yuan Li; Yifeng Yang; Siqing Xia; Slawomir W Hermanowicz; Lisa Alvarez-Cohen

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2018.08.132

Inhibition of anammox by sludge thermal hydrolysis and metagenomic insights

Bioresour Technol. 2018 Dec:270:46-54. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2018.08.132. Epub 2018 Sep 1.

Authors

Zaoli Gu¹, Yuan Li², Yifeng Yang¹, Siqing Xia³, Slawomir W Hermanowicz², Lisa Alvarez-Cohen¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai 200092, China; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
² Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
³ State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai 200092, China; Shanghai Institute of Pollution Control and Ecological Security, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai 200092, China. Electronic address: siqingxia@tongji.edu.cn.

PMID: 30212773
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2018.08.132

Abstract

Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) would be a feasible treatment method for thermal hydrolysis processed sidestream (THPS). Short-term study revealed that the 1/20 diluted THPS caused a 28% decrease of specific anammox activity. The MBR achieved a volumetric nitrogen loading rate of 3.64 kg/(m³·d) with undiluted regular sidestream (RS) fed, while the reactor crashed with 70% diluted THPS as feed. The ratio of produced NO₃^--N to consumed NH₄⁺-N also decreased compared with RS feeding. Candidatus brocadia was the major anammox bacteria species with the average abundance of 33.3% (synthetic wastewater), 6.42% (RS) and 2.51% (THPS). The abundances of metagenome bins for dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA) increased in the system with THPS compared with RS. The reason for the inhibition of anammox by THPS could be the high content of organic carbon in THPS, which caused the over-population of heterotrophic bacteria, i.e. DNRA bacteria, leading to anammox bacteria washout.

Keywords: Anammox; Inhibition; MBR; Metagenomics; Thermal hydrolysis pre-treated sidestream.

MeSH terms

Ammonium Compounds / metabolism*
Metagenomics*
Nitrates / metabolism
Nitrogen / analysis
Sewage* / microbiology
Wastewater / microbiology

Substances

Ammonium Compounds
Nitrates
Sewage
Waste Water
Nitrogen
ammonium nitrate