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Updated: Apr 6, 2026

A Novel Bioreactor for High Density Cultivation of Diverse Microbial Communities
Published on: December 25, 2015
Enhanced long-term ammonium removal and its ranked contribution of microbial genes associated with nitrogen cycling
Honglei Wang1, Guodong Ji1, Xueyuan Bai2
1Key Laboratory of Water and Sediment Sciences, Ministry of Education, Department of Environmental Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
Abstract:
The multimedia biofilter achieved high and stable removal efficiencies for chemical oxygen demand (COD, 62-98%) and NH4(+) (68-98%) without costly aeration. Results revealed that lower CL (less than 13.9gCOD/m(3)d) and ACL (less than 2.8gNH4(+)-N/m(3)d) or a C/N ratio exceeding five was required to reduce NO3(-)-N accumulation and NO/N2O emission. Integrated analyses indicated that the coupling of simultaneous nitrification, anammox and denitrification processes (SNAD) were the primary reason accounted for the enhanced NH4(+)-N treatment performance. NH4(+)-N removal pathways can be ranked as follows: nitrification (amoA, archaeal) (54.6%)>partial denitrification (nirS, nirK) and anammox (37.8%)>anammox and partial denitrification (narG, napA) (12.6%). Specifically, NH4(+)-N removal was significantly inhibited by NO2(-)-N accumulation in the system (-21.6% inhibition). Results from stepwise regression analysis suggested that the NH4(+) removal rate was collectively controlled by amoA, archaeal, anammox, nirS, nirK, narG and napA.
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