Accelerating innovation in nitrogen removal bioprocesses through the study of the emerging properties of natural microbial communities of nitrifiers.

对研究背景的简要说明，包括潜在的影响：氮是任何形式生命的基本成分：它是合成氨基酸(蛋白质的组成部分)和核酸所必需的。虽然地球大气中含有78%的氮素(氮气)，但植物或动物不能吸收这些氮素。因此，地球上的氮循环对任何环境都是必不可少的，因为通过生物和地球化学过程，氮的所有化学形式都是平衡的，促进了不同生态系统的存在。由于人类活动，氮循环在许多环境中是不平衡的。其中包括生活和工业用水排放的天然水体。更常见的情况是，在全球气温上升的有利条件下，NH4+和有机形态氮的积累促进了藻类水华的存在，这可能对动物和人类有害。总而言之，天然水域中特定形态氮素的积累减少了它们的环境多样性，增加了NO和N2O的排放，导致臭氧消耗和气候变化。为了平衡环境中的氮循环，减少向水体排放氮气是根本。一种可持续的方法是利用能够催化水中溶解的无机和有机形态氮的转化的自然微生物群落。生物过程的目的是控制这些群落生产氮气的活动。然而，由于我们对控制氮循环的微生物缺乏了解，这些过程的有效性受到了影响。以前，人们一直认为典型的硝化作用是由两个特定的官能团携带的，而反硝化作用是由异养菌进行的。然而，在过去的几十年里，关于生物氮循环的知识发生了戏剧性的变化。例如，厌氧氨氧化(Anammox)的发现，能够进行氨氧化的古生菌的分离(AOA和AOB)，能够进行完全氨氧化的硝化螺旋菌的分离(Comammox)，以及对反硝化作用及其微生物群落的认识都是在过去50年中发生的。这些新知识促进了污水生物处理工艺的发展，减少了N2O的排放和氧气的消耗。但也提出了新的科学问题：如果AOB和AOA都进行相同的生物过程，它们如何可能共存于相同的环境中？这种共存对自然和工程过程中的硝化和反硝化有何影响？AOB和AOA在自然环境中的生态位差异是什么？目的和目的：本项目的目的是探索上述科学问题，分析现有文献中的信息，收集硝化细菌的动力学参数，并开发最先进的数学模型来描述它们的生长。这些模型将研究环境条件，如pH、温度或盐度对微生物活动的影响，并最终影响生物工程过程。这一理论分析将通过格拉斯哥大学水与环境部在这里开发的实验来验证和验证。其目的将是加快生物工艺的创新，以便能够提出新的解决方案，以消除溪流中的氮(废物或/和饮用水处理)。研究方法的新颖性：我们将使用全面的数学模型，能够在微观层面详细描述微生物活动及其对当地环境的影响。这将被用来预测生物过程在受控运行条件下的功能表现和处理后的进水特性。这些数学模型

Brief description of the context of the research including potential impact:Nitrogen is a fundamental constituent of any form of life: it is necessary for the synthesis of amino acids (building blocks of proteins) and nucleic acids. Although the atmosphere of Earth is composed of 78% dinitrogen (N2), this cannot be assimilated by plants or animals. For this reason, the nitrogen cycle on Earth is essential to any environment because through biological and geochemical processes all the chemical forms of nitrogen are balanced, promoting the existence of diverse ecosystems. Owing to human activity, the nitrogen cycle is unbalanced in many environments. These include natural water bodies where discharge of domestic and industrial waters happens. More often, favored by the global rise of temperatures, the accumulation of NH4+ and organic forms of nitrogen facilitates the presence of algae blooms that can be toxic to animals and humans. Together, the accumulation of specific nitrogen forms in natural waters reduces their environmental diversity and increases NO and N2O emissions, inducing ozone depletion and contributing to climate change.To balance the nitrogen cycle in the environment, the reduction of nitrogen discharges to water bodies is fundamental. A sustainable way of doing this is using natural microbial communities able to catalyze the transformation of inorganic and organic forms of nitrogen dissolved in water. Bioprocesses aim to control the activity of these communities towards the production of N2 gas. However, the effectiveness of these processes is compromised by our lack of understanding of the microorganisms that control the nitrogen cycle. Before, canonical nitrification was always considered to be carried by two specific functional groups and denitrification by heterotrophic bacteria. However, in the last decades, the knowledge about the biological nitrogen cycle has dramatically change. For instance, the discovery of anaerobic ammonia oxidation (Anammox), the isolation of archaea able to perform ammonia oxidation as ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOA and AOB), the isolation of a Nitrospira specie capable to perform the complete ammonia oxidation (Comammox) and the understanding of denitrification and its microbial community have happen in the last 50 years. All this new knowledge permitted the enhance of the biological wastewater treatment process, reducing the emission of N2O and the consumption of oxygen. But also, new scientific questions have raised: How is possible that AOB and AOA co exist in the same environment if both carry out the same biological process? How does this coexistence affect nitrification and denitrification at natural and engineering process? Which is the niche differentiation between AOB and AOA at natural environments?Aims and objectives:The objective of this project is to explore the above scientific questions analyzing the current information in the literature, collecting the kinetic parameters of nitrifiers and developing state-of-the-art mathematical models to describe their growth. These models will study the effect of environmental conditions such as pH, temperature or salinity over the microbial activity and ultimately over the bioengineered process. This theoretical analysis will be verified and validated through experiments developed here at the Division of Water and Environment of the University of Glasgow. The aim will be to accelerate innovation in bioprocesses being able to propose novel solutions for nitrogen removal in water streams (waste or/and drinking water treatments). Novelty of the research methodology:We are going to use comprehensive mathematical models able to describe microbial activity in detail and its impact in the local environment at the microscale level. This will be used to predict the performance of bioprocesses function on controlled operational conditions and the characteristics of the influent treated. These mathematical models