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BACKGROUND: In this work, a comprehensive study of the respirometric and physical-chemical methods has been performed to evaluate the information provided by these two methodologies in order to assess the biodegradable organic matter fractions of wastewater.

The anaerobic treatment of sulphate-rich wastewater causes sulphate reducing bacteria (SRB) and methanogenic archaea (MA) to compete for the available substrate. The outcome is lower methane yield coefficient and, therefore, a reduction in the energy recovery potential of the anaerobic treatment. Moreover, in order to assess the overall chemical oxygen demand (COD) balance, it is necessary to determine how much dissolved CH(4) is lost in the effluent. The aim of this study is to develop a detailed and reliable method for assessing the COD mass balance and, thereby, to establish a more precise methane yield coefficient for anaerobic systems treating sulphate-rich wastewaters. A submerged anaerobic membrane bioreactor (SAMBR) treating sulphate-rich municipal wastewater was operated at 33 °C for an experimental period of 90 d, resulting in a high COD removal (approximately 84%) with a methane-enriched biogas of 54 ± 15% v/v. The novelty of the proposed methodology is to take into account the sulphide oxidation during COD determination, the COD removed only by MA and the dissolved CH(4) lost with the effluent. The obtained biomethanation yield (333 L CH(4) kg(-1) COD(REM MA)) is close to the theoretical value, which confirms the reliability of the proposed method.

A generalized low-order model of the biofilm in a microbial fuel cell (MFC), suitable for use in real-time engineering applications, is presented. It is based on the description of the charge transfer, diffusion process, and charge accumulation in the biofilm. Since the dynamic processes in an MFC are ruled mainly by the biofilm, it can be used for many different diffusion-based MFC types by just changing the boundary conditions. Different mode operations like batch, fed-batch, continuous, etc., are also possible. The time-responses of voltage, substrate concentration on the surface of the electrode, and Faradaic and capacitive currents have been tested under several experimental conditions.

This paper deals with the effect of a bioaugmentation batch enhanced (BABE) reactor implementation in a biological nutrient removal pilot plant on the populations of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB). The results of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) technique showed that AOB and NOB populations were significantly enhanced, from 4 to 8% and from 2 to 9%, respectively, as a result of the BABE reactor implementation. Regarding AOB, the percentage of Nitrosomonas oligotropha was mainly increased (3 to 6%). Regarding NOB, Nitrospirae spp was greatly enhanced (1 to 7%). Both species are considered K-strategist (high affinity to the substrate, low maximum growth rates) and they usually predominate in reactors with low ammonium and nitrite concentrations, respectively.

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A natural clay (Mn) modified with γ-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (Mn-S) and silver (Mn-S-Ag) were evaluated as a potential adsorption media for nitrate removal from water. These materials were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, zeta-potential, thermogravimetric analysis, scanning electron microscopy and elemental analyses. First, the adsorption capacity of the Mn-S clay for Ag(+) was studied. The cation adsorption capacity was almost three times greater for Mn-S than for Mn because a metal-amino group complex is favored. Second, the nitrate adsorption on Mn-S and Mn-S-Ag was studied as a function of contact time, pH, temperature and adsorbent dosage using batch techniques. In the absence of Ag(+), [Formula: see text] adsorption was high at low pH and the amount of adsorbed nitrate decreased as the pH increased. For the Mn-S, the following monolayer adsorption capacities were obtained: Qmax = 0.80, 0.72 and 0.68 mmol [Formula: see text]/g at pH 3, 5 and 7, respectively, whereas for the Mn-S-Ag the values obtained were: Qmax = 0.77, 0.74 and 0.42 mmol [Formula: see text]/g at pH 3, 5 and 7, respectively. From the results obtained, [Formula: see text] adsorption occurs over [Formula: see text] surface groups without involving the Ag(+) cation in the adsorption process.

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