Abstract
To address the availability of carbon sources for denitrification, the accelerated hydrolysis of the most abundant but low-availability fraction of particulate organic matter (POM) was investigated. Mesh sieves with different pore sizes were used as primary pretreatment at the start-up-stage of the biological process to separate some POM from the liquid system. The changes in soluble carbohydrates and proteins were monitored to investigate the hydrolysis performance of the sieved POM, with waste activated sludge (WAS) as the control test. The results showed that an average of 35% POM could be entrapped before filtrate mat development. In addition, benefiting from the high polysaccharides concentration, as well as the high availability due to the relatively loose physical structure, a 23% hydrolysis efficiency of POM was obtained, in contrast to that of WAS (3.4%), with a hydrolysis constant of 0.39 h−1. The prominent performance was also attributed to the unique microbial communities having been domesticated at a lower temperature, especially the cellulose-degrading bacteria Paraclostridium and psychrophile Psychrobacter, making up 6.94% and 2.56%, respectively. Furthermore, the potential benefits and application of improved POM hydrolysis by start-up stage recovery via mesh sieves combined with anaerobic fermentation were evaluated, including selective POM entrapment, alleviation of blockage and wear, and a reduction in aeration energy. By the proposed strategy, carbon availability for biological nutrient removal (BNR) processes is anticipated to be improved more economically than that can be achieved by primary clarifier elimination.
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Abbreviations
- POM:
-
Particulate organic matter
- BNR:
-
Biological nutrient removal
- WWTPs:
-
Wastewater treatment plants
- WAS:
-
Waste activated sludge
- ECS:
-
External carbon sources
- ISS:
-
Inorganic suspended solids
- VSS:
-
Volatile suspended solids
- TSS:
-
Total suspended solids
- VFAs:
-
Volatile fatty acids
- COD:
-
Chemical oxygen demand
- TCOD:
-
Total COD mg COD/L
- PCOD:
-
Particulate COD mg COD/L
- Ss:
-
Soluble readily biodegradable COD mg COD/L
- SA:
-
VFAs components in Ss mg COD/L
- SF:
-
Non-VFAs components in Ss mg COD/L
- Si:
-
Soluble inert COD mg COD/L
- Xs:
-
Particulate slowly biodegradable COD mg COD/L
- Xss:
-
Settable slowly biodegradable COD mg COD/L
- Xi:
-
Particulate inert COD mg COD/L
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Major Science and Technology Program of the Ministry of Environment protection of China (Nos. 2019YFC0408601 and 2019YFC0408602), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51708386, 21501129 and 21707099), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2016M-591416), the State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse Foundation (No. PCRRF17021), the Scientific and Technological Project of Shanxi Province (No. 201701D221230), the Key Research and Development (R&D) Project of Shanxi Province (Nos. 201903D321057 and 201903D321055), the Youth Science and Technology Foundation of Gansu Province (Nos. 1506RJYA154 and 18JR3RA023), and the Provincial Science and Technology Plan Projects of Gansu Province (No. 2015017).
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Highlights
• Carbon availability was partially solved by POM recovery and fermentation.
• 12% carbon sources were regenerated by fermentation of the entrapped 35% TCOD.
• The unique microbial communities facilitated the efficient hydrolysis of the POM.
• Considerable economic benefits in aeration power and ECS dosage were anticipated.
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Duan, Y., Zhou, A., Yue, X. et al. Acceleration of the particulate organic matter hydrolysis by start-up stage recovery and its original microbial mechanism. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng. 15, 12 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-020-1304-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-020-1304-3