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Updated: Dec 10, 2025
A Novel Bioreactor for High Density Cultivation of Diverse Microbial Communities
Published on: December 25, 2015
Performance of novel sponge biocarrier in MBBR treating recirculating aquaculture systems wastewater: Microbial
Abubakar Shitu1, Songming Zhu2, Wanhe Qi2
1College of Bio-systems Engineering and Food Science, Zhejiang University, Key Laboratory of Equipment and Informatization in Environment Controlled Agriculture, Ministry of Agriculture, Hangzhou, 310058, China; Department of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria.
Abstract:
In this study, a novel sponge biocarriers (SB) in moving bed bioreactor (MBBR) treating recirculating aquaculture systems wastewater was evaluated for the first time. Two lab-scale MBBRs were operated simultaneously for 116 days under various hydraulic retention times (HRTs). The reactors R1 and R2 were filled with K5 plastic carriers and SB, respectively. From the results, at an optimum HRT of 6 h, ammonia removal efficiency and nitrification rate were 86.67 ± 2.4% and 1.43 mg/L.h for the R1 and, 91.65 ± 1.3% and 1.52 mg/L.h for the R2, respectively. The microbial community analysis showed that the predominant genera in the nitrifying community were Nitrosomonas (AOB) and Nitrospira (NOB) in co-existence with heterotrophic genera Hyphomicrobium, Mesorhizobium, Zhizhongheella, and Klebsiella spp. Modified Stover-Kincannon model examined the ammonia removal kinetics, and the values of kinetic parameters obtained were Umax: 0.909 and 1.111 g/L.d and KB: 0.929 and, 1.108 g/L.d for the R1 and R2, respectively. The correlation coefficients (R2) of the MBBRs were higher than 0.98, indicating that the model adequately described the experimental data. Overall, MBBR, filled with the proposed novel SB operated at 6 h HRT, can achieve the highest nitrification performance and increase the diversity of the functional microbial communities.
