Potential of endogenous PHA as electron donor for denitrification

The use of wastewater streams to obtain polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) as high added-value products is widely studied. However, nitrogen removal is not well integrated into this process. In this study, the optimal conditions to track the specific endogenous denitrifying activity (SEDA) driven by PHA as carbon source were selected as: sludge concentration of 0.5-2 g VSS/L, COD_PHA/N ratio higher than 5.4 g/g and between 40 and 60 mg NO₃^--N/L. The seeding biomass used to perform the activity tests was collected from two sequencing batch reactors and was able to store up to 69% wt/wt of PHA. SEDA values of 0.26-0.39 g N₂-N/(g VSS_act d) were achieved, which proved the potential of PHA-accumulating mixed microbial cultures to be used in nitrogen removal processes. The results indicated that there is not a preference in the consumption of hydroxybutyrate over hydroxyvalerate and that PHA concentrations lower than 5% wt/wt do not allow the obtainment of the maximum SEDA value. Finally, N₂O gas production was not detected in the SEDA experiments.