Molecular microbial ecology of nitrification in an activated sludge process treating refinery wastewater

Ballinger, S. J.; Head, Ian M; Curtis, Tom; Godley, A. R.

doi:10.2166/wst.1998.0594

Cited by 22 publications

(30 citation statements)

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“…Probes were labeled with fluorescein isothiocyanate, tetramethyl rhodamine isothiocyanate, or indocarbocyanine and were obtained commercially (Genosys, Cambridge, United Kingdom, or ThermoHybaid, Ulm, Germany). A calibration of cell numbers against microcolony dimensions was undertaken using Nso190 (S-F-bAOB-0189-a-A-19), Nsm156 (S-G-Nsm-0155-a-A-19), and Nsv443 (S-G-Nsp-0443-a-S-19) (29) and Nsm641 (S-*-Nsm-0641-a-A-23), a probe specific for the dominant AOB 16S rRNA gene sequence recovered from a laboratory-scale reactor (6). The probes used for counts were Nso1225 (S-F-bAOB-1224-a-A-20), Nso190 (S-F-bAOB-0189-a-A-19), Nsm641 (S-*-Nsm-0641-a-A-23), and Eub338 (S-D-Bact-0338-a-A-18).…”

Section: Activated Sludge Plantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agreement between Theory and Measurement in Quantification of Ammonia-Oxidizing Bacteria

Coşkuner

Ballinger

Davenport

et al. 2005

Appl Environ Microbiol

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Autotrophic ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) are of vital importance to wastewater treatment plants (WWTP), as well as being an intriguing group of microorganisms in their own right. To date, corroboration of quantitative measurements of AOB by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) has relied on assessment of the ammonia oxidation rate per cell, relative to published values for cultured AOB. Validation of cell counts on the basis of substrate transformation rates is problematic, however, because published cell-specific ammonia oxidation rates vary by over two orders of magnitude. We present a method that uses FISH in conjunction with confocal scanning laser microscopy to quantify AOB in WWTP, where AOB are typically observed as microcolonies. The method is comparatively simple, requiring neither detailed cell counts or image analysis, and yet it can give estimates of either cell numbers or biomass. Microcolony volume and diameter were found to have a log-normal distribution. We were able to show that virtually all (>96%) of the AOB biomass occurred as microcolonies. Counts of microcolony abundance and measurement of their diameter coupled with a calibration of microcolony dimensions against cell numbers or AOB biomass were used to determine AOB cell numbers and biomass in WWTP. Cell-specific ammonia oxidation rates varied between plants by over three orders of magnitude, suggesting that cell-specific ammonia oxidation is an important process variable. Moreover, when measured AOB biomass was compared with process-based estimates of AOB biomass, the two values were in agreement.The quantification of microbial communities and populations is an invaluable aspect of microbial ecology. In principle, the autotrophic ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) are ideal candidates for the development of quantitative tools. AOB have a coherent phylogeny and defined nutritional requirements and are of profound practical importance in natural and engineered environments.The number of individuals should be the ideal benchmark for quantitative studies. Individual counts can be converted to biomass, biovolume, or proportion of biomass, and results obtained by more indirect methods are typically compared to the number of cells per unit volume (15). Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) represents the "gold standard" for quantification of specific bacterial cells in the environment, against which other methods should be compared. Classical (27) and immunological (20) methods are subject to methodological biases, while nonmicroscopic 16S rRNA-based methods (8, 34) or PCR-based methods (13,14,18,19) deliver a proportion of total cell counts, copy number, or relative signal intensities rather than an absolute number of cells or biomass.A quantitative method may be evaluated with respect to its precision and its accuracy. Wagner et al. (43) originally evaluated the accuracy of FISH counts of AOB by using cell specific oxidation rates, an approach previously used to show that most-probable-number-based methods underestimate AOB numbers...

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Section: Activated Sludge Plantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agreement between Theory and Measurement in Quantification of Ammonia-Oxidizing Bacteria

Coşkuner

Ballinger

Davenport

et al. 2005

Appl Environ Microbiol

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“…Different physico-chemical treatments have been employed in recent years for the removal of nitrogenated and organic compounds in coke wastewater (Ghose 2002;Mimhalma and De Pinho 2004). Biological treatments, widely used for domestic wastewater, have been extended to industrial wastewater over the last few decades (González et al 2001a, b;Ballinger et al 1998;Fang et al 1993;Grupta and Sharma 1996;Hirata et al 2001) and also to coke oven wastewater (Jeong and Chung 2006;Lee et al 2005;Ning et al 2005;Papadimitriou et al 2006;Qi et al 2007;Yamagishi et al 2001). In this latter case, very high hydraulic residence times are needed due to the slow biodegradability and toxicity of some of the compounds present in such wastewater.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coke Wastewater Treatment by a Three-Step Activated Sludge System

Marañón

Vázquez

Rodríguez

et al. 2008

Water Air Soil Pollut

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The treatment of industrial coke wastewater was studied in a laboratory-scale activated sludge system. The concentrations of the main pollutants in the wastewater ranged between 800 and 1870 mg COD/l, 100-221 mg phenols/l, 198-427 mg SCN/l, 133-348 mg NH þ 4 À N=l and 11-41 mg CN − /l. To avoid inhibition phenomena resulting from the high concentrations of thiocyanate, ammonium nitrogen and cyanide a three-step process was implemented. The first step was anoxic for the removal of nitrates, followed by an oxic step during which biodegradation of phenols and thiocyanates took place, and by a second oxic step to oxidize ammonium nitrogen to nitrate. The dilution effect due to the recirculation of the final effluent to the head of the process and also, the separation of the nitrification step from the biodegradation of thiocyanate led to much higher efficiencies than when the process was carried out simultaneously. Very high removals were obtained (99% phenols, 97% SCN − , 63% COD, 98% NH þ 4 À N, 90% total-N and 99% cyanide) employing hydraulic residence times of 15.4 h for denitrification, 98 h for phenol and thiocyanate biodegradation and 86 h for nitrification.

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“…FISH results revealed that both Nitrosomonas and Nitrosospira genera were found to be present in all samples during the monitoring period under changing conditions, therefore, one can interpret that one type of ammoniaoxidizing species cannot necessarily overpopulate on others, both can survive together on the contrary to Ballinger et al [25] who reported that different sub-populations of AOB may predominate under different operational regimes. Unfortunately, quantification could not be done in this study since most of the AOB form aggregates and their counts under epifluorescence microscopy would have resulted in unreliable data.…”

Section: Detection Of Aob In Biological Treatment Reactor Samples By mentioning

confidence: 67%

Identification of nitrifiers in a full-scale biological treatment system using fluorescentin situhybridization

Eyice

İnce

Coşkuner

et al. 2007

Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part A

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Diversity of nitrifying bacterial population was investigated in sludge samples taken from a full-scale biological wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) treating domestic wastewater by fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) during seasonal operation. Duplicate grab samples were collected in March 2003, June 2003, December 2003 and May 2004 from the aerobic tank of the treatment plant. FISH results were interpreted with system performance in terms of BOD5, TKN and NO3-N removals and also with operational parameters such as wastewater temperature and sludge age. BOD5 removal efficiencies were always greater than 90% whilst TKN removal in a range of 69-95% were achieved during the monitoring period. Although there were variations in operational conditions of the biological treatment system both Nitrosomonas and Nitrosospira genera from AOB and Nitrobacter genus from NOB were found to be present in all samples examined.

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Molecular microbial ecology of nitrification in an activated sludge process treating refinery wastewater

Cited by 22 publications

References 0 publications

Agreement between Theory and Measurement in Quantification of Ammonia-Oxidizing Bacteria

Agreement between Theory and Measurement in Quantification of Ammonia-Oxidizing Bacteria

Coke Wastewater Treatment by a Three-Step Activated Sludge System

Identification of nitrifiers in a full-scale biological treatment system using fluorescentin situhybridization

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