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Comparison of nitrogen removal efficiency and microbial characteristics of modified two-stage A/O, A2/O and SBR processes

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Abstract

The low temperature of sewage in north China results in low performance of biological treatment at municipal wastewater treatment plants (MWTPs), especially in biological nitrogen removal. A modified two-stage A/O process with an embedded biofilm was proposed to enhance nitrogen removal. The operation performance of a pilot test was compared with an A2/O and SBR process at existing MWTPs to investigate the resistance to low temperature. The microbial communities for the three processes were compared based on the metagenomics results of 16sDNA high-throughput sequencing from activated sludge. The modified A/O resulted in a higher average removal of COD (90.12%) than A2/O (85.23%) and SBR (83.03%), especially of small-molecule organic compounds (< 500 Da) and macromolecular refractory organics (> 5 k Da); the TN removal rate of A2/O, SBR and the modified A/O was also increased from 74.47%, 70.63% and 78.46%, respectively. High-throughput sequencing revealed increased microbial diversity and an abundance of denitrifying functional bacteria was observed in the modified A/O process at low temperatures. The abundance of nitrite oxidation bacteria (NOB) including Nitrosomonas and Nitrospira, the amount was 1.76% and 2.34% in modified A/O, respectively, whereas NOB only accounted for 1.82% in A2/O and 1.35% in SBR.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation (No. 51878287)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Engineering Laboratory for High-Concentration Refractory Organic Wastewater Treatment Technologies (NELHROWTT), State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Environmental Risk Assessment and Control On Chemical Process, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, People’s Republic of China

    Xiurong Chen, Xiao Wei, Yingying Yang, Shanshan Wang, Quanlin Lu, Yuan Wang, Qiuyue Li & Shuoyuan Wang

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  1. Xiurong Chen
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  2. Xiao Wei
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Chen, X., Wei, X., Yang, Y. et al. Comparison of nitrogen removal efficiency and microbial characteristics of modified two-stage A/O, A2/O and SBR processes. Environ Geochem Health 43, 4687–4699 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-021-00855-9

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