title: Assessment of a bioaugmentation strategy with polyphosphate accumulating organisms in a nitrification/denitrification sequencing batch reactor.
abstract: Different alternative configurations and strategies for the simultaneous biological removal of organic matter and nutrients (N and P) in wastewater have been proposed in the literature. This work demonstrates a new successful strategy to bring in enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) to a conventional nitrification/denitrification system by means of bioaugmentation with an enriched culture of phosphorus accumulating organisms (PAO). This strategy was tested in a sequencing batch reactor (SBR), where an 8h configuration with 3h anoxic, 4.5h aerobic and 25 min of settling confirmed that nitrification, denitrification and PAO activity could be maintained for a minimum of 60 days of operation after the bioaugmentation step. The successful bioaugmentation strategy opens new possibilities for retrofitting full-scale WWTP originally designed for only nitrification/denitrification. These systems could remove P simultaneously to COD and N if they were bioaugmented with waste purge of an anaerobic/aerobic SBR operated in parallel treating part of the influent wastewater.
authors.affiliation: Departament d'Enginyeria Química, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain. Carlota.Taya@uab.cat
authors.forename: Carlota
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tayà
authors.forename: Albert
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Guisasola
authors.forename: Juan A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Baeza
mesh_terms: D019149:Bioreactors; D017404:In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence; D058465:Nitrification; D011122:Polyphosphates / Q000378:metabolism*; D012722:Sewage
chemical_list: D011122:Polyphosphates; D012722:Sewage