Engineering a better biofilm: Rational design of attachment surface chemistry and morphology to remove nutrients and microconstituents

CBET 1337077安德鲁·舒勒新墨西哥大学美国废水处理行业正在努力解决保护敏感的受纳沃茨免受包括药品、激素和工业化学品在内的微量化学品影响的关键问题。由于这些化合物经常被检测到，而且在浓度很低的情况下就能破坏生态系统，因此受到越来越多的关注。先进的物理化学处理工艺，如反渗透，可以有效地去除其中许多化学品，但其能源消耗和环境后果受到批评，而且对许多社区来说，成本过高。因此，这些污染物的生物降解是有吸引力的，但在如何设计这种系统以实现高水平性能方面存在关键的知识空白。基于生物膜的系统在废水处理系统中的使用越来越多，主要用于脱氮，其中附着的微生物群落生长在浸没在废水中的塑料表面上。该项目将评估生物膜特性的假设，如微生物种群，吸光度特性和具有特定化学特性的微量成分的生物降解速率可以通过附着介质化学和物理特性的有针对性的设计来“工程化”。初步结果表明，这种特性可用于产生具有丰富的氨氧化细菌（硝化菌）群落的生物膜，并提高激素去除率。该项目将包括评估特定感兴趣细菌的微生物附着（例如，氨和亚硝酸盐氧化剂）到化学定义良好的表面（自组装单层），这些相互作用的建模，以及这些表面上的混合培养物的评价。这些结果将被用来开发反应器系统，其中的表面粗糙度和剪切的附加参数进行评估，与表面化学，以确定对功能行为的影响，包括去除目标微量成分和共代谢活性。该项目将满足可持续去除废水中微量成分的迫切需求，同时节省成本和能源。该项目将为如何设计表面以影响生物膜的发展，种群和功能性能提供新的基本见解，这将为利用生物膜系统的工艺工程师产生重要的新设计策略。这些结果对寻求成本效益高的技术以减少向敏感的受纳沃茨排放药物、激素和工业化学品的社区应该是非常有用的。

CBET 1337077Andrew SchulerUniversity of New MexicoThe U.S. wastewater industry is struggling to solve the critical problem of protecting sensitive receiving waters from microconstituent chemicals, including pharmaceuticals, hormones and industrial chemicals. These compounds are receiving increasing attention due to their frequent detection and their disruption of ecosystems at very low concentrations. Advanced physical-chemical treatment processes, such as reverse osmosis, can be effective at removing many of these chemicals, but their energy consumption and environmental consequences have been criticized, and they can be cost-prohibitive to many communities. Biodegradation of these contaminants is therefore attractive, but there are critical knowledge gaps in how such systems can be designed for high levels of performance. Biofilm-based systems are seeing increasing use in wastewater treatment systems, largely for nitrogen removal, where attached microbial communities are grown on plastic surfaces that are submerged in wastewater. This project will evaluate the hypothesis that biofilm properties, such as microbial populations, absorbance characteristics, and biodegradation rates of microconstituents with specific chemical properties can be "engineered" by targeted design of attachment media chemical and physical characteristics. Preliminary results suggest such properties can be used to produce biofilms with enriched communities of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (nitrifiers), and also to increase rates of hormone removal. This project will include evaluation of microbial attachment of specific bacteria of interest (e.g., ammonia and nitrite oxidizers) to chemically well-defined surfaces (self-assembled monolayers), modeling of these interactions, and evaluation of mixed cultures on these surfaces. These results will be used to develop reactor systems in which the additional parameters of surface roughness and shear are evaluated, with surface chemistry, to determine effects on functional behaviors, including removal of target microconstituents and cometabolic activity. This project will address the critical need for sustainable microconstituent removal from wastewater, while providing cost and energy savings. The project will provide new, fundamental insights to how surfaces can be designed to influence biofilm development, populations, and functional performance, which should produce important new design strategies for process engineers that utilize biofilm-based systems. These results should be of great use to communities seeking cost-effective technologies to reduce discharges of pharmaceuticals, hormones, and industrial chemicals to sensitive receiving waters.