title: Evaluating the potential for dissimilatory nitrate reduction by anammox bacteria for municipal wastewater treatment.
abstract: Anammox bacteria can perform dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA) with nitrite as intermediate coupled to the oxidation of volatile fatty acids (VFA). Batch tests with enriched anammox and a co-culture of anammox and heterotrophic bacteria showed the capacity of Candidatus 'Brocadia fulgida' to perform the DNRA coupled to the anammox reaction (DNRA-anammox) at a high rate although the culture was not previously adapted to VFA. From thermodynamic calculations it could be stated that low COD/N influent ratios favour the DNRA-anammox transformation over heterotrophic conversions since more free energy is gained. A process scheme is proposed for an innovative nitrogen removal system in which the nitrate produced by nitrite oxidizing bacteria and/or anammox bacteria is converted during DNRA-anammox pathway, resulting in a sustainable nitrogen removal from municipal wastewater while circumventing the troublesome out-selection of nitrite oxidizing bacteria encountered in mainstream applications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biosystems Engineering, Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, 9000 Gent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Celia M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Castro-Barros
authors.affiliation: Department of Biosystems Engineering, Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, 9000 Gent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Mingsheng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.affiliation: Department of Biotechnology, Delft University of Technology, Van der Maasweg 9, 2629 HZ Delft, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Mark C M
authors.initials: MCM
authors.lastname: van Loosdrecht
authors.affiliation: Department of Biosystems Engineering, Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, 9000 Gent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Eveline I P
authors.initials: EIP
authors.lastname: Volcke
authors.affiliation: Department of Biosystems Engineering, Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, 9000 Gent, Belgium; Department of Biotechnology, Delft University of Technology, Van der Maasweg 9, 2629 HZ Delft, The Netherlands; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-2700, USA. Electronic address: mwinkler@uw.edu.
authors.forename: Mari K H
authors.initials: MKH
authors.lastname: Winkler
mesh_terms: D000693:Anaerobiosis; D001419:Bacteria / Q000378:metabolism; D019149:Bioreactors / Q000382:microbiology*; D009566:Nitrates / Q000378:metabolism; D009584:Nitrogen / Q000378:metabolism; D010084:Oxidation-Reduction; D062065:Wastewater / Q000382:microbiology*
chemical_list: D009566:Nitrates; D009584:Nitrogen; D062065:Wastewater
keywords: Anammox; DNRA; Dissimilatory nitrate reduction; Nitrogen removal; VFA