Ecological Engineering of Bioaugmentatlon from Side-stream Nitrification

Abstract

Wastewater treatment relies on careful integration of environmental engineering with microbial ecology. This would seem to be particularly the case when attempting to enhance survivability of organisms introduced from outside the main-stream reactor, i.e. bioaugmentation. Molecular biology tools were utilised in this study to assist in understanding the mechanisms of successful bioaugmentation. Molecular fingerprinting showed that side-stream reactor configuration strongly influenced ammonia-oxidising bacteria (AOB) community structure. In both lab-scale and full-scale systems, AOB communities in the side-stream and main-stream were very similar. The experimental systems revealed that a PFR side-stream produced greater diversity of AOB than a CSTR side-stream in a PFR main-stream system, whereas the full-scale side-stream resulted in essentially an AOB monoculture. Phylogenetic analysis revealed less diversity than molecular fingerprinting perhaps due to biases in the cloning/transformation procedure.

Department(s)

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering

Keywords and Phrases

Biochemistry; Biology; Environmental management; Molecular biology; Rivers; Wastewater; Wastewater reclamation; Water treatment; Activated sludge; Bioaugmentation; Ecological engineering; Nitrification; Phylogenetic analysis; Restriction fragment length polymorphism; Wastewater treatment; community structure; microbial ecology; phylogenetics; polymorphism; waste treatment; ammonia oxidising bacteria; bacterium colony; biomedical engineering; DNA fingerprinting; monoculture; nonhuman; phylogeny; sidestream nitrification; species diversity; bacterium; bioreactor; bioremediation; classification; genetics; metabolism; methodology; microbiology; sewage; nitrite; Bacteria; Biodegradation; Environmental; Bioreactors; Nitrites; Restriction Fragment Length; Waste Disposal; Fluid

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0273-1223

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2008 IWA Publishing, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jun 2008

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