A biochemical hypothesis explaining the response of enhanced biological phosphorus removal biomass to organic substrates

Comparison between acclimated and unacclimated biomass affecting anaerobic–aerobic transformations in the biological removal of phosphorus

“…This observation was coincident with the studies of Randall et al [15]. However, after the biomass was long-term cultured with the propionic acid enriched wastewater, the net phosphorus removal in experiment P became much greater than in experiment A (21.39 against 15.19 mg/l) suggesting that the biological phosphorus removal with the propionic acid enriched wastewater was higher than with the acetic acid in the long-term cultured experiments, which was consistent with the observation of Hood and Randall [16]. Consequently, the effect of propionic acid enriched wastewater on EBPR is biomass acclimation relevant.…”

“…However, until now most of the studies on carbon substrate affecting EBPR are focused on acetate or glucose [1,3,[8][9][10][11][12]. The investigation on other SCFA such as propionic acid influencing EBPR performance is limited [13][14][15][16][17]. As propionic acid is also one SCFA, addition to acetic acid present in real sewage [18], it is necessary to investigate the effect of propionic acid presence in wastewater on both anaerobic and aerobic behaviour of EBPR.…”

“…They found that propionic acid accumulated less PHB but more PHV than acetic acid, which was the reason for propionic acid causing much less aerobic phosphate uptake than acetic acid [17]. However, the results of Hood and Randall [16] showed that propionic acid had a higher phosphorus removal than acetic acid in the long-term sequence batch reactor (SBR) cultures. It seems that there are some differences between the long-term (acclimated) and short-term (unacclimated ) effects of propionic acid on EBPR performance, but their comparison has never been documented.…”

Treatment of municipal wastewater using a contact oxidation filtration separation integrated bioreactor

“…(2) Utilizing subsequent enhanced chemical phosphorus removal (Hood and Randall, 2001). It requires further investigation to study whether or not an effective phosphorus removal of the CFBR can take place under the above-mentioned methods.…”

Research on polyhydroxyalkanoates and glycogen transformations: Key aspects to biologic nitrogen and phosphorus removal in low dissolved oxygen systems

“…Satoh et al [14] observed that the PHB content decreased, while PHV and PH2MV increased when the ratio of propionic to acetic acid increased. Moreover, several researchers observed that phosphorus uptake, release, and removal efficiency were correlated with the type and content of PHB and PHV [15][16][17][18]. Chuang et al [19] investigated the variations of phosphorus and PHA in a combined activated sludge-biofilm process and revealed that PHB and PHV were major components of PHA, and the PHV/PHA value increased, while the PHB/PHA value decreased simultaneously when the F/M ratio increased.…”