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Microbial activity and community structure in a lake sediment used for psychrophilic anaerobic wastewater treatment
Author(s) -
Xing W.,
Zhao Y.,
Zuo J.e.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of applied microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.889
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1365-2672
pISSN - 1364-5072
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2672.2010.04809.x
Subject(s) - psychrophile , methanogen , microbial population biology , wastewater , anaerobic exercise , archaea , biology , methanosarcina , methanogenesis , chemical oxygen demand , sediment , pulp and paper industry , microbial ecology , sewage treatment , microbial consortium , food science , ecology , environmental science , bacteria , microorganism , methane , environmental engineering , physiology , genetics , engineering , paleontology
Aims: The aim of the study was to investigate the feasibility of a continuous reactor for psychrophilic anaerobic wastewater treatment by using the sludge from cold natural environment. Methods and Results: Six sludge samples (S1–S6) were collected from different cold natural locations to select sludge with high anaerobic microbial activity under low temperatures. After a 225‐day incubation, the maximum specific methane production rate of a waterfowl lake sediment (S1) at 15°C (70·5 mLCH 4 gVSS −1 day −1 ) was much higher than all other samples. S1 was thus chosen as the seed sludge for the reactor treating synthetic brewery wastewater at 15°C, by immobilizing the micro‐organisms on polyurethane foam carriers. The chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency reached over 80% after 240‐day operation at an organic loading rate of 5·3 kg m −3 day −1 , and significant enrichment of biomass was observed. Clone libraries of the microbial communities in the inoculum had high diversities for both archaea and bacteria. Along with a decrease in microbial community diversities, the dominant bacteria (79·5%) at the end of the operation represented the phylum Firmicutes , while the dominant archaeon (41·5%) showed a similarity of 98% with the psychrotolerant methanogen Methanosarcina lacustris . Conclusions: The possibility of using anaerobic micro‐organisms from cold environments in anaerobic wastewater treatment under psychrophilic conditions is supported by these findings. Significance and Impact of the Study: This study enriches the theory on microbial community and the application on anaerobic treatment of sludge from cold natural environments.