[Diversity of culturable filamentous bacteria in the activated sludge from A2O wastewater treatment process]

The anoxic-anaerobic-oxic (A2O) process is widely used in wastewater treatment plant, however, sludge bulking and foaming are the most frequent operational problems in this process. Activated sludge bulking is caused by the overgrowth of some types of filamentous bacteria, especially Microthrix parvicella. In the study, 17 strains of filamentous bacteria were isolated from the bulking sludge of A2O process using Gause's medium. The 16S rRNA genes of the 17 isolates were sequenced to analyze their diversity. The results showed all of the 17 isolates were Streptomyces. Further analysis of these strains by the repetitive sequence based on polymerase chain reaction (rep-PCR) technology showed that there was a high diversity in these isolated Streptomyces. The physiological properties of them were different from Microthrix parvicella. The settleability of activated sludge was improved when some of the isolates were inoculated.