Algal-bacterial aerobic granular sludge for real municipal wastewater treatment: Performance, microbial community change and feasibility of lipid recovery

Laila Dina Amalia Purba, Sasmitha Aulia Zahra, Ali Yuzir, Koji Iwamoto, Norhayati Abdullah*, Kazuya Shimizu, Zhongfang Lei, Joni Hermana

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Despite various research works on algal-bacterial aerobic granular sludge for wastewater treatment and resource recovery processes, limited information is available on its application in real wastewater treatment in terms of performance, microbial community variation and resource recovery. This study investigated the performance of algal-bacterial aerobic granular sludge on real low-strength wastewater treatment in addition to the characterization of microbial community and fatty acid compositions for biodiesel production. The results demonstrated 71% COD, 77% NH4+-N and 31% phosphate removal efficiencies, respectively. In addition, all the water parameters successfully met the effluent standard A, imposed by the Department of Environment (DOE) Malaysia. Core microbiome analyses revealed important microbial groups (i.e., Haliangium ochraceum, Burkholderiales and Chitinophagaceae) in bacterial community. Meanwhile the photosynthetic microorganisms, such as Oxyphotobacteria and Trebouxiophyceae dominated the algal-bacterial aerobic granular sludge, suggesting their important roles in granulation and wastewater treatment. Up to 12.51 mg/gSS lipid content was recovered from the granules. In addition, fatty acids composition showed high percetages of C16:0 and C18:0, demonstrating high feasibility to be used for biodiesel production application indicated by the cetane number, iodine value and oxidation stability properties.

Original languageEnglish
Article number117374
JournalJournal of Environmental Management
Volume333
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 May 2023

Keywords

  • Aerobic granular sludge
  • Biodiesel
  • Lipid production
  • Microbiome
  • Next generation sequencing (NGS)

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Algal-bacterial aerobic granular sludge for real municipal wastewater treatment: Performance, microbial community change and feasibility of lipid recovery'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this