Microbial Addition Technology for Enhanced Biological Wastewater Treatment

为什么它很重要？生活和工业废水造成了大量污染，特别是在淡水系统内。众所周知，这些废水中的许多对周围环境都是剧毒的，因此有必要创造一种经济有效的方法来处理这些废水中发现的复杂化合物。生物强化是这样一种方法，它涉及添加根据其专门特性而选择的微生物，目的是加强对目标污染物的去除(Raper等人，2018年)。在添加补充微生物的情况下，该工艺具有改善某些废水处理系统的性能的能力。该技术还有可能降低污水处理厂的资本成本，无论是集中式还是分散式。特别是，这可能会使安装在低收入和中等收入国家的分散工厂的成本更容易负担得起，以改善当地的卫生状况。我们不知道什么？目前的生物强化研究主要集中在实验室规模的合成废水研究上，而不是直接在大型废水处理系统中的过程性能。该项目将如何实施？研究最初将涉及实验室实验，调查微生物生长(特别是使用呼吸仪)以及与废水处理相关的好氧和厌氧生物过程中的存活率。在项目的后期阶段，我们将重点将蛇油生物强化产品应用于一个全面的污水处理厂，以测试其对最终产品的影响。一个侧流反应器将用于细菌生长，使接种的微生物完全适应其环境。会有什么影响？为了达到净零碳目标，降低污水处理厂的资本和运营成本，有效和快速地去除某些污染物，最终达到污水处理厂更好的出水达标率。

Why is it important?Domestic and industrial wastewater has contributed to a large amount of pollution, particularly within freshwater systems. It is known that many of these wastewaters are highly toxic to the surrounding environment and therefore it is necessary to create a cost-effective method of trying to cope with the complex compounds found within these wastewaters.Bioaugmentation is such a method that involves the addition of microorganisms that are selected specifically for their specialized characteristics, with the aim of enhancing removal of target pollutants (Raper et al, 2018). With the addition of supplementary micro-organisms, the process has the capabilities of improving performance within certain wastewater treatment systems. The technology also has the potential to reduce the capital cost of wastewater treatment plants, both centralised and decentralised. In particular, this could make the cost of decentralised plants installed in low- and middle-income countries more affordable to improve sanitation in local areas.What don't we know?Current bioaugmentation studies have mainly focussed on laboratory-scaled research with synthetic wastewater, rather than the process performance directly in large-scale wastewater treatment system.How will the project be carried out?The research will initially involve laboratory-based experiments investigating microbial growth (particularly using a respirometer) and survival in aerobic and anaerobic bioprocesses relevant to wastewater treatment. In the latter stages of the project, we will focus on implementing a "snake oil" bioaugmentation product into a full-scale WWTP, to test the effect it has on the final product. A side-stream reactor will be used for bacterial growth as to allow the inoculated microorganisms to become fully acclimatised to its environment.What will be the impact?To meet net zero carbon targets, reduce capital and operating costs of WWTS, removal of certain contaminants effectively and quickly and finally meet better effluent compliance in WWTS's.