Bioaugmentation treatment of municipal wastewater with heterotrophic-aerobic nitrogen removal bacteria in a pilot-scale SBR

• Bioaugmented treatment of municipal wastewater in a pilot-scale SBR.
• Heterotrophic-aerobic nitrogen removal bacteria (PCN) used for bioaugmentation.
• Addition of PCN bacteria improved the original bacterial community structure.
• Bioaugmentation enhanced the aerobic nutrients removal ability of original system.

PCN bacteria capable of heterotrophic-aerobic nitrogen removal was successfully applied for bioaugmented treatment of municipal wastewater in a pilot-scale SBR. At an appropriate COD/N ratio of 8, the bioaugmentation system exhibited stable and excellent carbon and nutrients removal, the averaged effluent concentrations of COD, NH4+-N, TN and TP were 20.6, 0.69, 14.1 and 0.40 mg/L, respectively, which could meet the first class requirement of the National Municipal Wastewater Discharge Standards of China (COD < 50 mg/L, TN < 15 mg/L, TP < 0.5 mg/L). Clone library and real-time PCR analysis revealed that the introduced bacteria greatly improved the structure of original microbial community and facilitated their aerobic nutrients removal capacities. The proposed emerging technology was shown to be an alternative technology to establish new wastewater treatment systems and upgrade or retrofit conventional systems from secondary-level to tertiary-level.

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