Hydrolysis and degradation of filtrated organic particulates in a biofilm reactor under anoxic and aerobic conditions

Hydrolysis capacity of different sized granules in a full-scale aerobic granular sludge (AGS) reactor

“…These substrates make up the largest COD fraction in municipal wastewater, and must be extracellularly hydrolysed to compounds of smaller molecular weight (<1 kDa) to be assimilated by microorganisms ( Ferenci, 1980 ; Hollibaugh and Azam, 1983 ). Previous experimental work found hydrolysis to be mainly biomass-bound, rather than occurring in the reactor bulk liquid ( Confer and Logan, 1998 ; Goel et al., 1998 ; Janning et al., 1998 , 1997 ; Mosquera-Corral et al., 2003 ). In full-scale AGS, aerobic granules showed significant hydrolytic activity, suggesting that wastewater polymers can be utilized by granules ( Toja Ortega et al., 2021a ).…”