Study on poultry manure wastewater treatment by two-stage aerobic coupled process and its microbial community analysis

Two-stage aerobic coupled process consisted of anoxic, aerobic-1 with low DO and aerobic-2 with high DO (short for “A-LO-HO” process), was applied for post-treatment of poultry manure wastewater, which suffered by high ammonia nitrogen and high salinity. Outstanding NH4+-N removal efficiency of 99.5% was obtained, and the COD removal efficiency was about 75%, even under the severe stress. Multiple molecular technologies, include DGGE, real time PCR and high-throughput sequencing were applied to reveal the microbial community of the sludge. The reasonable distribution of the dominant bacteria Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter would explain the synergistic effect of the partial nitrification in “A-LO” section and the completed nitrification in “HO” section. The microbial community and EPS analysis further confirmed the outstanding nitrifying ability, good salt-tolerant ability, and unaffected sedimentation property of the sludge with particular enhanced features which is acclimated for long time by the targeted coupled process and suitable for this kind of wastewater treatment.