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Treatment of olive mill wastewater through employing sequencing batch reactor: performance and microbial diversity assessment

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Abstract

This work describes the performance of a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) and the involvement of a novel reconstituted bacterial consortium in olive mill wastewater (OMW) treatment. The organic loading rate applied to the SBR was serially increased in terms of initial COD from 10 to 75 g L−1 to allow gradual acclimatization of activated sludge to high concentrations of toxic compounds in OMW. After the acclimatization period, up to 60% of the total COD content were effectively biodegraded from OMW at 75 g L−1 COD within 30 day hydraulic retention time. The diversity and community composition of cultivable bacteria participating in the aerobic process of treating OMW were further assessed. A total of 91 bacterial strains were isolated from the reactor and analyzed by amplification of the 16S-23S rRNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region and by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The most abundant phylum was Firmicutes (57.1%) followed by Proteobacteria (35.2%) and Actinobacteria (7.7%). The use of the Biolog® Phenotype Microarray system to evaluate the ability of isolated strains to utilize OMW phenolic compounds is reported in this work for the first time. Interestingly, results showed that all species tested were able to utilize phenolics as sole carbon and energy sources. The removals of COD and phenolics from undiluted OMW by the reconstituted bacterial consortium were almost similar to those obtained by the acclimatized activated sludge, which suggest that cultivable bacteria play the major role in OMW biodegradation. Phytotoxicity assays using tomato seeds showed a significant improvement of seed germination values for treated OMW. Our overall results suggest that the novel developed bacterial consortium could be considered as a good prospect for phenolics-rich wastewaters bioremediation applications.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research of the Tunisian Republic and the MADFORWATER Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program [grant agreement No. 688320].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Microorganisms and Active Biomolecules, Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, Institut Supérieur des Sciences Biologiques Appliquées de Tunis, University of Tunis El Manar, 9, Rue Zouhair Essafi, 1007, Tunis, Tunisia

    Fatma Arous, Chadlia Hamdi, Souhir Kmiha, Nadia Khammassi, Amani Ayari & Atef Jaouani

  2. University of Manouba, ISBST, BVBGR-LR11ES31, Biotechpole Sidi Thabet, Ariana, Tunisia

    Mohamed Neifar

  3. Laboratoire de Biochimie et de Genie Enzymatique des Lipases, ENIS, Route de Soukra, BPW 1173-3038, Sfax, Tunisia

    Tahar Mechichi

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  1. Fatma Arous
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Arous, F., Hamdi, C., Kmiha, S. et al. Treatment of olive mill wastewater through employing sequencing batch reactor: performance and microbial diversity assessment. 3 Biotech 8, 481 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-018-1486-6

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