CAN UNDERSTANDING THE EMERGENT BEHAVIOUR OF MIXED CULTURE SYSTEMS AID WASTEWATER TREATMENT SYSTEM DESIGN AND OPERATION?

用于处理被污染的土壤、水或空气的工程生物系统，对于成熟和新兴工业化国家实现可持续的城市和工业未来至关重要。这些技术在很大程度上是根据经验开发的，通常设计相对粗糙。从本质上讲，工程师们推断出最适合特定废物的氧化还原条件，然后他们根据经验确定装载率（有时是生长率）来启动一个反应堆，也许是用一个成功反应堆的生物质样本，并希望得到最好的结果。这一策略可能适用于相对可降解的污染物，并为富裕的社区或工业处理废物。然而，它不太可能经受住时间的考验。从系统工程的角度来看，作为污水处理特征的生物反应的复杂网络很少被可靠地设计出来，当然也从未被优化过，即使系统的基本形式已经被很好地理解了。可以认为，除非我们能够预测和优化我们已经了解的网络，否则对已描述或未描述的降解生物网络的进一步定性见解将毫无意义。因此，本提案的目的是研究污水处理厂运行的不可预测方面是由于未能理解生物反应网络对性能的影响，还是由于无法适当描述网络中的元素。这个问题的答案是至关重要的，因为它决定了是应该努力发展个体微生物行为的更详细的表现，还是定义生物反应网络的行为。

Engineered biological systems for the treatment of polluted or contaminated soil, water or air are of fundamental importance to the achievement of a sustainable urban and industrial future for both established and emerging industrialised nations. These technologies have been largely developed empirically and are typically designed relatively crudely. In essence engineers infer the redox conditions most appropriate for a particular waste, they then use empirically determined loading rates (and sometimes growth rates) to start up a reactor, perhaps with a sample of biomass from a successful reactor, and hope for the best. This stratagem may be appropriate for relatively degradable pollutants and treating the wastes for wealthy communities or industries. However, it is not likely to stand the test of time. From a systems engineering perspective, the complex network of biological reactions that characterise wastewater treatment are rarely if ever engineered reliably and certainly never optimised, even though the basic format of the system is understood very well. It could be argued that further qualitative insights into described or indeed un-described networks of degrading organisms will serve no purpose unless, and until, we can predict and optimise the networks we already understand . It is therefore the objective of this proposal to examine whether the unpredictable aspects of wastewater plant operation are as a consequence of failure to understand the impact of the bioreaction network on performance or are a consequence of their inability to appropriately describe elements within the network. The answer to this is critical as it dictates whether effort should be directed towards developing more detailed representations of individual micro-organism behaviour or the behaviour of networks of defined biological reactions.