Integrated microbial biotechnologies for sustainable resource recovery from wastewater

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Not everyone likes to think about what happens after they flush. However, humankind is currently emitting far more nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and carbon (C) into the environment than our planet can process, and this could lead to the deterioration of natural ecosystems critical to human sustainability. Domestic wastewater is a significant contributor of these compounds, and wastewater is now the largest contributor of pollution to Canadian water sources. Traditional biological treatment processes used to convert N, P, and C in wastewater have high energy requirements and greenhouse gas emissions. Microorganisms are the drivers of these biological treatment processes, yet little is known about their diversity and metabolic capacities, due to their general difficulty of isolation in the lab. This fundamental knowledge gap hinders the development of new biotechnologies that enable the recovery of nutrients, bioenergy, and clean water as renewable resources from wastewater. Recent advances in cultivation-independent genome sequencing technologies, such as metagenomics, can help to elucidate the metabolic capabilities of novel microbes within complex environmental systems. Yet, current biological wastewater treatment design approaches are lagging behind the genomics revolution, as such modelling platforms do not consider the metabolic capacity and diversity of microbial biomass. My research program will progress beyond traditional wastewater treatment design approaches by incorporating next-generation genomic sequencing data into process models that can accurately predict pollutant transformation under a variety of emerging bioreactor configurations. The long-term goal of my research program is to develop and apply new microbial biotechnologies that recover energy and nutrients from municipal wastewater, while protecting environmental and human health. The short-term objectives of this research program focus on applying genomics tools to model and advance three emerging biotechnologies that inclusively support the overall goal: (1) Energy-efficient biological P removal and recovery; (2) Low-energy N removal in mainstream wastewater. (3) Enhanced bioenergy recovery through anaerobic digester sludge pretreatment. This proposal includes plans for measuring the microbial rates of N, P, and C conversion within these bioprocesses, as well as for targeted metagenomic sequencing analysis of the active microbial populations. By combining process rate measurements with community-scale modelling, this research program will provide a mechanistic understanding of how microbes and their metabolisms interact to predict outcomes of important engineered processes that preserve Canada's clean water sources. This will lead to significantly lower operational costs and greenhouse gas emissions for wastewater treatment through energy and nutrient recovery.