Abstract
High concentrations of proteins and amino acids can be found in wastewater and wastewater stream produced in anaerobic digesters, having shown that amino acids could persist over different managements for nitrogen removal affecting the nitrogen removal processes. Nitrogen removal is completely necessary because of their implications and the significant adverse environmental impact of ammonium such as eutrophication and toxicity to aquatic life on the receiving bodies. In the last decade, the treatment of effluents with high ammonium concentration through anammox-based bioprocesses has been enhanced because these biotechnologies are cheaper and more environmentally friendly than conventional technologies. However, it has been shown that the presence of important amounts of proteins and amino acids in the effluents seriously affects the microbial autotrophic consortia leading to important losses in terms of ammonium oxidation efficiency. Particularly the presence of sulfur amino acids such as methionine and cysteine has been reported to drastically decrease the autotrophic denitrification processes as well as affect the microbial community structure promoting the decline of ammonium oxidizing bacteria in favor of other phylotypes. In this context we discuss that new biotechnological processes that improve the degradation of protein and amino acids must be considered as a priority to increase the performance of the autotrophic denitrification biotechnologies.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ali M, Okabe (2015) Anammox-based technologies for nitrogen removal: advances in process start-up and remaining issues. Chemosphere 141:144–153
Brandstätter C, Laner D, Fellner J (2015) Nitrogen pools and flows during lab-scale degradation of old landfilled waste under different oxygen and water regimes. Biodegradation 26(5):399–414
Carrère H, Duma C, Battimelli A, Batstone DJ, Delgenes JP, Steyer JP, Ferrer I (2010) Pretreatment methods to improve sludge anaerobic degradability: a review. J Hazard Mater 183:1–15
Choi J, Ahn Y (2014) Comparative performance of air-lift partial nitritation processes with attached growth and suspended growth without biomass retention. Environ Technol 35(9–12):1328–1337
Choi JW, Kim JY, Nam YJ, Lee WS, Han JS (2013) Comparison of compositional characteristics of amino acids between livestock wastewater and carcass leachate. Environ Monit Assess 185:9413–9418
Daalkhaijav U, Nemati M (2014) Ammonia loading rate: an effective variable to control partial nitrification and generate the anaerobic ammonium oxidation influent. Environ Technol 35:523–531
Du W, Parker W (2012) Modeling volatile organic sulfur compounds in mesophilic and thermophilic anaerobic digestion of methionine. Water Res 46(2):539–546
Gonzalez-Martinez A, Poyatos JM, Hontoria E, Gonzalez-Lopez J, Osorio F (2011) Treatment of effluents polluted by nitrogen with new biological technologies based on auto- trophic nitrification- denitrification processes. Recent Pat Biotechnol 5(2):74–84
Gonzalez-Martinez A, Pesciaroli C, Martinez-Toledo MV, Hontoria E, Gonzalez-Lopez J, Osorio F (2014a) Study of nitrifying microbial communities in a partial-nitritation bioreactor. Ecol Eng 64:443–450
Gonzalez-Martinez A, Rodriguez-Sanchez A, Muñoz-Palazon B, Garcia- Ruiz M-J, Osorio F, van Loosdrecht MCM, Gonzalez-Lopez J (2014b) Microbial community analysis of a full-scale DEMON bioreactor. Bioprocess Biosyst Eng 38:499–508
Gonzalez-Martinez A, Morillo JA, Garcia-Ruiz MJ, Gonzalez-Lopez J, Osorio F, Martinez-Toledo MV, van Loosdrecht MCM (2015a) Archaeal populations in full-scale autotrophic nitrogen removal bioreactors operated with different technologies: CANON, DEMON and partial nitritation/anammox. Chem Eng J 277:194–201
Gonzalez-Martinez A, Osorio F, Morillo JA, Rodriguez-Sanchez A, Gonzalez-Lopez J, Abbas BA, van Loosdrecht MCM (2015b) Comparison of bacterial diversity in full scale anammox bioreactors operated under different conditions. Biotechnol Progress. doi:10.1002/btpr.2151 (in Press)
Gonzalez-Martinez A, Rodriguez-Sanchez A, Garcia-Ruiz MJ, Osorio F, Gonzalez-Lopez J (2015c) Impact of methionine on a partial-nitritation biofilter. Environ Sci Pollut Res. doi:10.1007/s11356-015-5889-1
Gut L, Płaza E, Hultman B (2007) Assessment of a two-step partial nitritation/anammox system with implementation of multivariate data analysis. Chemometr Intell Lab Syst 86(1):26–34
Hawkins S, Robinson K, Layton A, Sayler G (2010) Limited impact of free ammonia on Nitrobacter spp. Inhibition assessed by chemical and molecular techniques. Bioresour Technol 101:4513–4519
He XS, Xi BD, Zhang ZY, Gao RT, Tan WB, Cui DY, Yuan Y (2015) Composition, removal, redox and metal complexation properties of dissolved organic nitrogen in composting leachates. J Hazard Mater 283:227–233. doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2014.09.027
Henze M, Van Loosdrecht MCM, Ekama GA, Brdjanovic D (2008) Biological wastewater treatment: principles, modelling and design. IWA Publishing, London
Isanta E, Reino C, Carrera J, Perez J (2015) Stable partial nitritation for low-strength wastewater at low temperature in an aerobic granular reactor. Water Res 80:149–158
Kowalchuk GA, Stephen JR, De Boer W, Prosser JI, Embley TM, Woldendorp JW (1997) Analysis of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria of the beta subdivision of the class Proteobacteria in coastal sand dunes by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis and sequencing of PCR-amplified 16S ribosomal DNA fragments. Appl Environ Microbiol 63:1489–1497
Kraft B, Strous M, Tegetmeyer HE (2011) Microbial nitrate respiration-genes, enzymes and environmental distribution. J Biotechnol 155:104–117. doi:10.1016/j.jbiotec.2010.12.025
Liu T, Li D, Zeng H et al (2012) Biodiversity and quantification of functional bacteria in completely autotrophic nitrogen removal over nitrite (CANON) process. Bioresour Technol 118:399–406
Lomans BP, Pol A, Op den Camp HJM (2002) Microbial cycling of volatile organic sulfur compounds in anoxic environments. Water Sci Technol 45:55–60
Lücker S, Wagner M, Maixner F, Pelletier E, Koch H, Vacherie B, Ratteie T, Damsté JSS, Spieckg E, Le Paslier D, Daims H (2010) A Nitrospira metagenome illuminates the physiology and evolution of globally important nitrite-oxidizing bacteria. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107:13479–13484
Mulder MW, Van Loosdrecht MCM, Hellinga C, Kempen R (2001) Full scale application of the SHARON process for treatment of rejection water of digested sludge dewatering. Wat Sci Technol 43(11):127–134
Nielsen M, Bollmann A, Sliekers O et al (2005) Kinetics, diffusional limitation and microscale distribution of chemistry and organisms in a CANON reactor. FEMS Microbiol Ecol 51(2):247–256
Okrouhla M, Stupka R, Citdk J, Sprysl M, Kluzakova E, Trnka M, Stolc L (2006) Amino acid composition of pig meat in relation to live weight and sex. Czech J Anim Sci 51:529–534
Park J, Park S, Kim M (2014) Anaerobic degradation of amino acids generated from the hydrolysis of sewage sludge. Environ Technol 35:1133–1139. doi:10.1080/09593330.2013.863951
Philippot L (2002) Denitrifying genes in bacterial and Archaeal genomes, review. Biochim Biophys Acta 1577:355–376
Püttker S, Kohrs F, Benndorf D, Heyer R, Rapp E, Reichl U (2015) Metaproteomics of activated sludge from a wastewater treatment plant—a pilot study. Proteomics 15:3596–3601. doi:10.1002/pmic.201400559
Sri Shalini S, Joseph K (2012) Nitrogen management in landfill leachate: application of SHARON, ANAMMOX and combined SHARON-ANAMMOX process. Waste Manag 32:2385–2400
Van Hulle SWH, Volcke EIP, López J, Donckels B, Van Loosdrecht MCM, Vanrolleghem PA (2007) Influence of temperature and pH on the kinetics of the SHARON nitritation process. J Chem Tech Biotechnol 82:471–480
Vázquez-Padín J, Mosquera-Corral A, Campos JL, Méndez R, Revsbech NP (2010) Microbial community distribution and activity dynamics of granular biomass in a CANON reactor. Water Res 44(15):4359–4370
Westgate JP, Park CH (2010) Evaluation of proteins and organic nitrogen in wastewater treatment effluents. Environ Sci Technol 44:5352–5357
Wett B (2006) Solved upscaling problems for implementing deammonification of rejection water. Water Sci Technol 53(12):121
Xiao N, Chen Y, Chen A, Feng L (2014) Enhanced bio-hydrogen production from protein wastewater by altering protein structure and amino acids acidification type. Sci Rep 4:3992. doi:10.1038/srep03992
Zhang W, Zhang Z, Yan S (2015) Effects of various amino acids as organic nitrogen sources on the growth and biochemical composition of Chlorella pyrenoidosa. Bioresour Technol 197:458–464
Zumft WG (1992) The denitrifying prokaryotes. In: Balows A, Truper HG, Dworkin M, Harder W, Schleifer KH (eds) The prokaryotes A handbook on the biology of bacteria: ecophysiology isolation identification applications, 1, 2nd ed, 2nd edn. Springer, New York, pp 554–582
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
There are no conflicts of interest for any of the authors.
Ethical approval
This article does not contain any studies with human or animals.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
González-Martínez, A., Calderón, K. & González-López, J. New concepts of microbial treatment processes for the nitrogen removal: effect of protein and amino acids degradation. Amino Acids 48, 1123–1130 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-016-2185-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-016-2185-4