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Updated: Dec 14, 2025

A Novel Bioreactor for High Density Cultivation of Diverse Microbial Communities
Published on: December 25, 2015
Simultaneous nitrogen and phosphorus removal by interactions between phosphate accumulating organisms (PAOs) and
Huankai Li1, Yuming Zhong2, Hui Huang3
1Innovative Institute of Animal Healthy Breeding, Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Zhongkai University of Agriculture and Engineering, Guangzhou 510225, China; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Macau, Macau SAR 999078, China.
Abstract:
The identification of phosphate-accumulating organisms (PAOs), denitrifying phosphate-accumulating organisms (DPAOs) and their relationship is a key pathway for optimizing nitrate and phosphate removal efficiency in activated sludge. In this study, the acclimatization of microorganisms in sequencing batch reactor were performed with anaerobic/aerobic (A/O) and anaerobic/anoxic (A/A) cycles, the biomass changes of PAOs and DPAOs and the correlations were then discussed. The results indicated that after acclimatization, the nutrient removal efficiencies reached to 85.34% (COD), 93.64% (PO43--P) and 92.34% (NO3--N), respectively, with NO3--N:PO43-P of 1.5:1. The successful enrichment of PAOs and DPAOs (reached 97.9%) was verified by the change of relative metabolic activities, which was further proved by the change of bacterial diversity. The number of Candidatus Accumulibacter, Zoogloea, and Dechloromonas all increased at A/O and A/A stages while the number of Acinetobacter only increased at A/O stage. So Accumulibacter sp. was DPAO while Acinetobacter sp. was only PAO in this process, and genera Accumulibacter, Dechloromonas and Zoogloea greatly coordinated in denitrification and accumulating phosphorous though RDA and chord plot. This was worthy of attention and development to explore enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) in practical wastewater treatment via improving identification of bacterial species and symbiosis of bacteria community.
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