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Microbial community dynamics at high organic loading rates revealed by pyrosequencing during sugar refinery wastewater treatment in a UASB reactor

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Abstract

The performance and microbial community structure in an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor (UASB) treating sugar refinery wastewater were investigated. The chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal reached above 92.0% at organic loading rates (OLRs) of 12.0–54.0 kgCOD/(m3∙d). The volatile fatty acids (VFAs) in effluent were increased to 451.1 mg/L from 147.9 mg/L and the specific methane production rate improved by 1.2–2.2-fold as the OLR increased. The evolution of microbial communities in anaerobic sludge at three different OLRs was investigated using pyrosequencing. Operational taxonomic units (OTUs) at a 3% distance were 353, 337 and 233 for OLR12, OLR36 and OLR54, respectively. When the OLR was increased to 54.0 kgCOD/(m3∙d) from 12.0 kgCOD/(m3∙d) by stepwise, the microbial community structure were changed significantly. Five genera (Bacteroides, Trichococcus, Chryseobacterium, Longilinea and Aerococcus) were the dominant fermentative bacteria at the OLR 12.0 kgCOD/(m3∙d). However, the sample of OLR36 was dominated by Lactococcus, Trichococcus, Anaeroarcus and Veillonella. At the last stage (OLR = 54.0 kgCOD/(m3∙d)), the diversity and percentage of fermentative bacteria were markedly increased. Apart from fermentative bacteria, an obvious shift was observed in hydrogen-producing acetogens and nonacetotrophic methanogens as OLR increased. Syntrophobacter, Geobacter and Methanomethylovorans were the dominant hydrogen-producing acetogens and methylotrophic methanogens in the samples of OLR12 and OLR36. When the OLR was increased to 54.0 kgCOD/(m3∙d), the main hydrogen-producing acetogens and hydrogenotrophic methanogens were substituted with Desulfovibrio and Methanospirillum. However, the composition of acetotrophic methanogens (Methanosaeta) was relatively stable during the whole operation period of the UASB reactor.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51508316 and 51708341), Open Project of State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology (No. QA201523), HIT Environment and Ecology Innovation Special Funds (No. HSCJ201614). Research Project for Young Sanjin Scholarship of Shanxi, Program for the Outstanding Innovative Team of Higher Learning Institutions of Shanxi, and Research Fund of Tianjin Key Laboratory of Aquatic Science and Technology (No. TJKLAST-ZD-2016-05).

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  1. College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, 030000, China

    Liguo Zhang & Qiaoying Ban

  2. State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Municipal and Environmental Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150000, China

    Jianzheng Li

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  1. Liguo Zhang
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Correspondence to Jianzheng Li.

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Zhang, L., Ban, Q. & Li, J. Microbial community dynamics at high organic loading rates revealed by pyrosequencing during sugar refinery wastewater treatment in a UASB reactor. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng. 12, 4 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-018-1045-8

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