Finding low-cost ways to engineeranaerobic communities,to enhance the operation of rural septic tanks

在世界各地的偏远、农村或地区，化粪池是最普遍的处理生活废水的方法，然后再排放到环境中。化粪池是由混凝土制成的地下室，其中提供厌氧环境，微生物群落生长降解废水中存在的有机物。这样可以去除水中的污染物，并将其释放到环境中。目前，这些系统的工程非常差，这意味着它们的操作总是遭受故障，并且它们的效率很低。这增加了地下水环境污染的风险，在某些情况下，这种污染可能对地表沃茨产生影响，影响饮用水的供应。在这个项目中，我建议探索这些化粪池的优化分析系统中存在的微生物群落，以找到新的方法来工程化粪池。在化粪池中生长的微生物群落的特点是存在几个种群，它们之间形成代谢协同作用。环境条件和废水的化学特性改变了这些群落的结构，在某些情况下，会导致该过程的失败。增加微生物培养物的多样性和稳健性可能导致更有效和可靠的过程。为了实现这一目标，我将开发能够描述厌氧条件下微生物活动的最先进的数学模型。这将使我们能够分析系统中不同群体之间建立的协同作用。数学描述将使我能够将微生物活性和所施加的环境条件联系起来，因此，该项目旨在提出新的设计，以提高系统的生物活性和整体性能。例如，一种假设是，微生物多样性可能会增加化粪池运行的稳健性。如果我能够在计算机上预测哪些条件会增加厌氧微生物群落的多样性，这将导致一个新的工程系统比实际系统更容易失败。

In remote, rural or areas all over the world, septic tanks are the most prevalent to treat domestic waste water before disposal into the environment. Septic tanks, are underground chambers made of concrete in which, providing an anaerobic environment, microbial communities grow degrading the organic matter present in the wastewater. This removes the contaminants in the water, and this can be released into the environment. Currently, the engineering of these systems is very poor which implies that their operation is always subjected to failure, and their efficiency is low. This increases the risks of environmental contamination of ground water which, in some cases, could have an effect in surface waters affecting supplies of drinking water. In this project, I propose to explore the optimization of these septic tanks analysing the microbial community present in the system to find novel ways to engineer it. The microbial communities that grow in the septic tank, are characterised by the presence of several populations that form metabolic synergies between them. Environmental conditions and the chemical characteristics of the wastewater, change the structure of these communities and in some cases, provoke the failure of the process. Increasing the diversity and robustness of the microbial culture might lead to a more efficient and reliable process. To achieve this, I am going to develop state-of-the-art mathematical models able to describe microbial activity under anaerobic conditions. These will allow us to analyse the synergies stablished between the different populations in the system. The mathematical description will allow me to connect microbial activity and the environmental conditions imposed and, therefore, this project will aim to propose novel designs to enhance the biological activity and overall, the performance of the system. For example, one hypothesis is that microbial diversity might increase the robustness of the operation of septic tanks. If I am able to predict in-silico which conditions will increase diversity of the anaerobic microbial community, this will lead the proposal of a novel engineered system less subject to failure than the actual systems.