Effects of sucrose amendment on ammonia assimilation during sewage sludge composting

• Sucrose amendment can promote ammonia assimilation.
• Sucrose decreased ammonia emission by 24.7–31.1%, and 3% sucrose gave the least ammonia emission.
• Sucrose increased ammonia assimilating bacteria population 2.5–3.5 fold.
• The activities of key enzymes associated with ammonia assimilation were enhanced by sucrose.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the laboratory-scale composting of sewage sludge and pumice mixtures that were amended with sucrose. The variation in temperature, pH, NH4+-N, ammonia emission, bacterial community, ammonia assimilating bacteria (AAB) populations and enzymatic activity related to ammonia assimilation were detected. The addition of sucrose increased the AAB population by 2.5–3.5 times, reduced ammonia emission by 24.7–31.1% compared with the control treatment, and promoted the growth of Bacillus and Wautersiella. The activities of glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH), glutamate synthase (GS) and glutamine synthetase (GOGAT), were enhanced by the addition of sucrose. GDH made a substantial contribution to ammonia assimilation when the ammonia concentration was high (⩾1.5 g/kg) in the thermophilic phase. The GS/GOGAT cycle played an important role at low ammonia concentrations (⩽1.1 g/kg) in the cooling phase. These results suggested that adding sucrose to sludge compost could promote ammonia assimilation and reduce ammonia emission.