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Direct treatment of high-strength soft drink wastewater using a down-flow hanging sponge reactor: performance and microbial community dynamics

  • Environmental biotechnology
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Abstract

A stand-alone down-flow hanging sponge (DHS) system with a two-stage configuration was operated for 700 days to treat synthetic soft drink wastewater at 3000 mg/L chemical oxygen demand (COD). Throughout the operation, >90% COD and total organic carbon (TOC) removal efficiency was obtained by the first stage, and a final effluent of COD <60 mg/L (TOC <20 mg/L) was consistently maintained with the second stage. Lower organic removal efficiency was observed to closely correlate with lower pH, higher volatile fatty acid (VFA) concentration, and higher suspended solid (SS) in the effluent. Occasionally, biomass sloughing was observed as a cause to unstable reactor performance in the first stage. The microbial community of the retained biomass on the sponges differed significantly based on spatial locations of sponges, sampling time points, and loading shocks. In general, Proteobacteria were found to be more abundant in the reactor at an organic removal efficiency >80% than that at <50%. Specifically, operational taxonomic units closely related to Tolumonas auensis and Rivicola pingtungensis were identified as important populations that were responsible for degrading the major substrate in the soft drink wastewater toward to the end of the reactor operation. In addition, high abundance of Bacteroidetes in the reactor was speculated to be responsible for the VFA accumulation in the effluent. This study demonstrated that stand-alone DHS reactor could be used in treating high-strength wastewater efficiently.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Kyohei Kuroda, Na-Kyung Kim, and Ran Mei at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana for the valuable advice. The opinion expressed here is the authors’ perspective and does not represent PepsiCo Inc.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 205 North Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA

    Junhui Liao, Curtis Fang & Wen-Tso Liu

  2. PepsiCo Global R&D, 3 Skyline Dr., Hawthorne, NY, 10532, USA

    Jimmy Yu, Arun Sathyagal & Eric Willman

Authors
  1. Junhui Liao
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  2. Curtis Fang
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  3. Jimmy Yu
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  4. Arun Sathyagal
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  5. Eric Willman
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  6. Wen-Tso Liu
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Contributions

JY, AS, and WTL designed the experiment, JL and CF conducted the experiment, and all authors contributed to the manuscript writing.

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Correspondence to Wen-Tso Liu.

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This study was supported by PepsiCo Inc. to Dr. Wen-tso Liu.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Liao, J., Fang, C., Yu, J. et al. Direct treatment of high-strength soft drink wastewater using a down-flow hanging sponge reactor: performance and microbial community dynamics. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 101, 5925–5936 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-017-8326-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-017-8326-1

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