Performance and microbial ecology of a nitritation sequencing batch reactor treating high-strength ammonia wastewater

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 6; no. 1; p. 35693
• Main Authors: Chen, Wenjing, Dai, Xiaohu, Cao, Dawen, Wang, Sha, Hu, Xiaona, Liu, Wenru, Yang, Dianhai
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 20.10.2016; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 45/23; 45/29; 45/77; 631/326/171/1878; 631/61/168; Abundance; Ammonia; Ammonia - metabolism; Ammonium; Bacteria; Bacteria - classification; Bacteria - genetics; Batch reactors; Biomass; Bioreactors - microbiology; Biota; Cluster Analysis; Dissolved oxygen; DNA, Bacterial - chemistry; DNA, Bacterial - genetics; DNA, Ribosomal - chemistry; DNA, Ribosomal - genetics; Humanities and Social Sciences; Load distribution; multidisciplinary; Next-generation sequencing; Nitrates; Nitrification; Nitrites; Oxidation-Reduction; Phylogeny; Reactors; Relative abundance; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S - genetics; rRNA 16S; Science; Sequence Analysis, DNA; Waste Water - chemistry; Waste Water - microbiology
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep35693

The partial nitrification (PN) performance and the microbial community variations were evaluated in a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) for 172 days, with the stepwise elevation of ammonium concentration. Free ammonia (FA) and low dissolved oxygen inhibition of nitrite-oxidized bacteria (NOB) were used to achieve nitritation in the SBR. During the 172 days operation, the nitrogen loading rate of the SBR was finally raised to 3.6 kg N/m 3 /d corresponding the influent ammonium of 1500 mg/L, with the ammonium removal efficiency and nitrite accumulation rate were 94.12% and 83.54%, respectively, indicating that the syntrophic inhibition of FA and low dissolved oxygen contributed substantially to the stable nitrite accumulation. The results of the 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing revealed that Nitrospira , the only nitrite-oxidizing bacteria in the system, were successively inhibited and eliminated, and the SBR reactor was dominated finally by Nitrosomonas , the ammonium-oxidizing bacteria, which had a relative abundance of 83%, indicating that the Nitrosomonas played the primary roles on the establishment and maintaining of nitritation. Followed by Nitrosomonas, Anaerolineae (7.02%) and Saprospira (1.86%) were the other mainly genera in the biomass.