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Updated: Aug 24, 2025

Extraction of Structural Extracellular Polymeric Substances from Aerobic Granular Sludge
Published on: September 26, 2016
Evaluating the role of algae in algal-bacterial granular sludge: Nutrient removal, microbial community and granular
Yingying Zhou1, Yuanhang Zhou2, Siqin Chen2
1Key Laboratory of Three Gorges Reservoir Region's Eco-Environment, Ministry of Education, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400045, China; College of Environment and Ecology, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400045, China.
Abstract:
Algal-bacterial granular sludge (ABGS) and bacterial granular sludge (BGS, control group) were operated over 240 days to investigate the role of algae in treating synthetic municipal wastewater. The results showed that algae significantly improved the removal efficiency of total nitrogen (TN). The nitrogen removal load of ABGS was 2.6 mg-N/g-VSS/day (22.8 %, light) and 1.1 mg-N/g-VSS/day (9.6 %, dark) higher than that of BGS, respectively, which was attributed to algae enhanced NH3-N removal capacity in the anaerobic stage and increased the utilization efficiency of organics in denitrification. Algae increased the relative abundance of denitrifying bacteria, and ABGS (28.83 %) was higher than BGS (14.28 %). Moreover, the dominant phylum of algae was Chlorophyta (98.39 %), the chlorophyll-a was sustained at 1.28 ± 0.26 mg/g-VSS. Algae significantly increased the content of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), and the increased polysaccharide came from the tightly bound EPS. This study expands the understanding of the role of algae in ABGS.
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