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Formation of soluble microbial products by activated sludge under anoxic conditions

Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology volume 87, pages 373–382 (2010)Cite this article

Abstract

In this work, both experimental and modeling approaches are used to explore the formation of soluble microbial products (SMP) by activated sludge under anoxic conditions. With substrate consumption, the SMP concentration increases gradually. Utilization associated products (UAP) are the main fraction of SMP when substrate is present; whereas biomass associated products (BAP) are the major content of SMP as substrate is completely consumed. The fraction of the accumulated SMP accounts for 3-4% of initial organic substrate. Three dimensional excitation emission matrix analysis results indicate that the SMP concentration increases in the denitrification process. The accumulation of nitrite up to 22.6 mg/l under anoxic conditions has no significant effect on the SMP formation. With a consideration of SMP formation under anoxic conditions, an ASM3-based denitrification model is developed. The results show that the developed model is able to capture the relationship between the SMP formation and the substrate consumption by activated sludge in the denitrification process.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the Natural Science Foundation of China (50625825, 50708106 and 50738006), and the Key Special Program on the S&T for the Pollution Control and Treatment of Water Bodies (2008ZX07316-002 and 2008ZX07010-005) for the partial support of this study.

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Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Wen-Ming Xie, Bing-Jie Ni, Raymond J. Zeng, Guo-Ping Sheng & Han-Qing Yu

  2. School of Resource and Environmental Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, 230009, China

    Jing Song

  3. School of Environmental and Municipal Engineering, Qingdao Technological University, Qingdao, 266033, China

    De-Zhi Le, Xue-Jun Bi & Chang-Qing Liu

  4. State Key Laboratory of Environmental Aquatic Chemistry, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China

    Min Yang

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  1. Wen-Ming Xie
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  2. Bing-Jie Ni
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  4. Guo-Ping Sheng
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  5. Han-Qing Yu
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  6. Jing Song
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  7. De-Zhi Le
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  9. Chang-Qing Liu
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  10. Min Yang
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Correspondence to Han-Qing Yu.

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Xie, WM., Ni, BJ., Zeng, R.J. et al. Formation of soluble microbial products by activated sludge under anoxic conditions. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 87, 373–382 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-010-2563-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-010-2563-x

Keywords

  • Activated sludge
  • C/N
  • Denitrification
  • Modeling
  • Soluble microbial products (SMP)