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Microalgal–bacterial granular sludge process for non-aerated aquaculture wastewater treatment

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Abstract

Microalgal–bacterial granular sludge (MBGS) process has become a focal point in treating municipal wastewater. However, it remains elusive whether the emerging process can be applied for the treatment of aquaculture wastewater, which contains considerable concentrations of nitrate and nitrite. This study evaluated the feasibility of MBGS process for aquaculture wastewater treatment. Result showed that the MBGS process was competent to remove respective 64.8%, 84.9%, 70.8%, 50.0% and 84.2% of chemical oxygen demand, ammonia–nitrogen, nitrate–nitrogen, nitrite–nitrogen and phosphate–phosphorus under non-aerated conditions within 8 h. The dominant microalgae and bacteria were identified to be Coelastrella and Rhodobacteraceae, respectively. Further metagenomics analysis implied that microbial assimilation was the main contributor in organics, nitrogen and phosphorus removal. Specifically, considerable nitrate and nitrite removals were also obtained with the synergy between microalgae and bacteria. Consequently, this work demonstrated that the MBGS process showed a prospect of becoming an environmentally friendly and efficient alternative in aquaculture wastewater treatment.

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Acknowledgements

This research was financially supported by the College Students’ Science and Technology Innovation Fund of WUST (18ZRA023), the Project of Key Laboratory of Healthy and Freshwater Aquaculture, Ministry of Agriculture (ZJK201810) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51808416).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Water and Wastewater Engineering, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430065, China

    Siqi Fan, Bin Ji, Jie Fan, Shaodong Guo & Jian Wang

  2. Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, University Kebangsaan Malaysia, UKM, 43600, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia

    Hassimi Abu Hasan

  3. Agriculture Ministry Key Laboratory of Healthy Freshwater Aquaculture, Key Laboratory of Fish Health and Nutrition of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang Institute of Freshwater Fisheries, Huzhou, 313001, China

    Julin Yuan

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  1. Siqi Fan
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Correspondence to Bin Ji.

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Fan, S., Ji, B., Abu Hasan, H. et al. Microalgal–bacterial granular sludge process for non-aerated aquaculture wastewater treatment. Bioprocess Biosyst Eng 44, 1733–1739 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-021-02556-0

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