Improving phosphorus removal in aerobic granular sludge processes through selective microbial management

Henriet, Olivier; Meunier, Christophe; Henry, Paúl; Mahillon, Jacques

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2016.03.099

Cited by 59 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…In full-scale AGS plants, settling time is for practical reasons longer, around 30 min, which gives a mixture of granules and floccular sludge (Pronk et al 2015 ). In a previous study, selective removal of sludge was applied; a fraction consisting of both very light and very dense granules was removed to retain a wider size range of granules in the reactor (Henriet et al 2016 ). This lead to an improved phosphorus removal, since very large and dense granules which are saturated with phosphorus and cannot take up more were removed.…”

Section: Process Configurations and Operational Conditions Affecting mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In spite of the lower sludge concentration, the nitrogen and phosphorus removal rates increased, but the granules became less stable. Henriet et al ( 2016 ) managed to operate an SBR with a H/D ratio of 1.8 by selecting for PAOs by removal of the poorly granulated fraction of the biomass. Recently, AGS in continuous systems has been successfully operated in lab-scale reactors inoculated with activated sludge from a full-scale biological nutrient removal plant (Devlin and Oleszkiewicz 2018 ).…”

Section: Optimization Of the Ags Process And Influence On Effluent Qumentioning

confidence: 99%

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The mechanisms of granulation of activated sludge in wastewater treatment, its optimization, and impact on effluent quality

Wilén

Liébana

Persson

et al. 2018

Appl Microbiol Biotechnol

145

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Granular activated sludge has gained increasing interest due to its potential in treating wastewater in a compact and efficient way. It is well-established that activated sludge can form granules under certain environmental conditions such as batch-wise operation with feast-famine feeding, high hydrodynamic shear forces, and short settling time which select for dense microbial aggregates. Aerobic granules with stable structure and functionality have been obtained with a range of different wastewaters seeded with different sources of sludge at different operational conditions, but the microbial communities developed differed substantially. In spite of this, granule instability occurs. In this review, the available literature on the mechanisms involved in granulation and how it affects the effluent quality is assessed with special attention given to the microbial interactions involved. To be able to optimize the process further, more knowledge is needed regarding the influence of microbial communities and their metabolism on granule stability and functionality. Studies performed at conditions similar to full-scale such as fluctuation in organic loading rate, hydrodynamic conditions, temperature, incoming particles, and feed water microorganisms need further investigations.

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Section: Process Configurations and Operational Conditions Affecting mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Optimization Of the Ags Process And Influence On Effluent Qumentioning

confidence: 99%

The mechanisms of granulation of activated sludge in wastewater treatment, its optimization, and impact on effluent quality

Wilén

Liébana

Persson

et al. 2018

Appl Microbiol Biotechnol

145

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The microbial communities of AGS systems fed with 100%-VFA WW are well described in literature, and dominated by Gammapropteobacteria, in particular, the PAO Candidatus ( Ca.) Accumulibacter and the GAOs from the Competibacteraceae family (Weissbrodt et al., 2013; He et al., 2016a; Henriet et al., 2016). Most of these bacteria have a metabolism adapted to VFA uptake under anaerobic conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organic substrate diffusibility governs microbial community composition, nutrient removal performance and kinetics of granulation of aerobic granular sludge

et al. 2019

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Basic understanding of formation of aerobic granular sludge (AGS) has mainly been derived from lab-scale systems with simple influents containing only highly diffusible volatile fatty acids (VFA) as organic substrate. This study compares start-up of AGS systems fed by different synthetic and municipal wastewaters (WW), characterised by increasing complexity in terms of non-diffusible organic substrate. Four AGS reactors were started with the same inoculum activated sludge and operated for one year. The development of AGS, settling characteristics, nutrient and substrate removal performance as well as microbial community composition were monitored. Our results indicate that the higher the content of diffusible organic substrate in the WW, the faster the formation of AGS. The presence of non-diffusible organic substrate in the influent WW led to the formation of small granules and to the presence of 20–40% (% of total suspended solids) of flocs in the AGS. When AGS was fed with complex influent WW, the classical phosphorus and glycogen accumulating organisms (PAO, GAO) were outcompeted by their fermentative equivalents. Substrate and nutrient removal was observed in all reactors, despite the difference in physical and settling properties of the AGS, but the levels of P and N removal depended on the influent carbon composition. Mechanistically, our results indicate that increased levels of non-diffusible organic substrate in the influent lower the potential for microbial growth deep inside the granules. Additionally, non-diffusible organic substrates give a competitive advantage to the main opponents of AGS formation – ordinary heterotrophic organisms (OHO). Both of these mechanisms are suspected to limit AGS formation. The presented study has relevant implications for both practice and research. Start-up duration of AGS systems treating high complexity WW were one order of magnitude higher than a typical lab-scale system treating VFA-rich synthetic WW, and biomass as flocs persisted as a significant fraction. Finally, the complex synthetic influent WW – composed of VFA, soluble fermentable and particulate substrate - tested here seems to be a more adequate surrogate of real municipal WW for laboratory studies than 100%-VFA WW.

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“…Other methods used for wastewater treatment include, for example, artificial wetlands [41]. Another method is the biological removal of P using polyphosphate-accumulating bacteria [42]. This microbial process is called enhanced biological phosphorus removal and has, in practice, been incorporated into numerous activated sludge treatment plants [43].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modified Biochar—A Tool for Wastewater Treatment

et al. 2020

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Global deposits of concentrated phosphates, which are a necessary source for the production of phosphate fertilizers, are limited. These reserves keep getting thinner, and every day, large amounts of phosphorus end up in watercourses. In this study, we verified that modified biochar (saturated with FeCl3 solution and then neutralized with NaOH solution) can adsorb significant amounts of phosphorus from wastewater. Moreover, the agrochemical qualities of sludge water from a municipal wastewater treatment plant, struvite, phosphorus-saturated biochar, and iron(III) phosphate from a reused biochar filter were tested in this study. We determined the amount of mobile phosphorus as well as the amount of extractable phosphorus and its five fractions. It was found that modified biochar can hold one-third of the phosphorus amount contained in the commonly used agricultural fertilizer simple superphosphate (1 × 105 g of modified biochar captures up to 2.79 × 103 g of P). Moreover, plants can more easily access phosphorus biochar fractions than struvite, which is formed spontaneously during sludge management. The results of this research prove that the proposed method of recycling phosphorus from wastewater can be applied in technological practice.

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Improving phosphorus removal in aerobic granular sludge processes through selective microbial management

Cited by 59 publications

References 34 publications

The mechanisms of granulation of activated sludge in wastewater treatment, its optimization, and impact on effluent quality

The mechanisms of granulation of activated sludge in wastewater treatment, its optimization, and impact on effluent quality

Organic substrate diffusibility governs microbial community composition, nutrient removal performance and kinetics of granulation of aerobic granular sludge

Modified Biochar—A Tool for Wastewater Treatment

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