Effects of Granular Activated Carbon Amendment, Temperature, and Organic Loading Rate on Microbial Communities in Up-Flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket Reactors
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 149, Issue 5
Abstract
Methane recovery in up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors performing anaerobic digestion (AD) can be improved with adjustments in operational factors such as temperature, organic loading rate, and the addition of granular activated carbon (GAC). This study aims to perform a multiple operational factor analysis for their impacts on UASB microbial communities. Data collected from seven continuously operated UASB reactors and batch tests were analyzed using a range of bioinformatics and statistical tools. Temperature and reactor types were the most important factors in microbial communities in UASB reactors, although the addition of GAC also had a statically significant impact. The positive and negative correlations between classified phylotypes and performance indicators were determined. It was noted that more phylotypes were positively correlated with hydrogenotrophic specific methanogenic activity (SMA) than acetoclastic SMA. The occurrence network of the overall microbial communities from samples amended with GAC was modularized into eight main groups (occupying 92% of the nodes). Seven modules containing both methanogens and syntrophs were identified as potential functional communities for AD. These modules were mainly regulated by reactor types and driven by different combinations of operational factors using co-occurrence network analysis and generalized joint attribute modeling. Overall, the paper bridged operational configurations and reactor performance with microbial community dynamics.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, or code that support the findings of this study (DNA sequencing data; R codes for generating the networks) are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the financial support for this project provided by research grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grant, the NSERC Industrial Research Chair (IRC) Program in Sustainable Urban Water Development through the support by EPCOR Water Services, EPCOR Drainage Operation, and Alberta Innovates, the Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Future Water Services (Liu, Y.), and the China Scholarship Council (CSC) (Yu, N.). This research was enabled in part by support provided by Compute Canada (www.computecanada.ca).
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 149 • Issue 5 • May 2023
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 22, 2022
Accepted: Nov 30, 2022
Published online: Feb 17, 2023
Published in print: May 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Jul 17, 2023
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Activated carbon
- Anaerobic processes
- Biological processes
- Carbon
- Chemical compounds
- Chemical elements
- Chemicals
- Chemistry
- Design (by type)
- Engineering fundamentals
- Engineering materials (by type)
- Environmental engineering
- Granular materials
- Load factors
- Loading rates
- Materials engineering
- Measurement (by type)
- Microbes
- Organic loads
- Organisms
- Pollutants
- Structural design
- Temperature effects
- Temperature measurement
- Waste management
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