Different Engineering Designs Have Profoundly Different Impacts on the Microbiome and Nitrifying Bacterial Populations in Municipal Wastewater Treatment Bioreactors
Taegyu Kim, Sebastian Behrens, Timothy M. LaPara
Abstract
Municipal wastewater treatment facilities rely on the application of numerous "activated sludge" process designs to achieve site-specific treatment goals. A plethora of microbiome studies on municipal wastewater treatment bioreactors have been performed previously; however, the role of process design on the municipal wastewater treatment microbiome is poorly understood. In fact, wastewater treatment engineers have attempted to control the microbiome of wastewater bioreactors for decades without sufficient empirical evidence to support their design paradigms. Our research demonstrates that engineering decisions with respect to system design have a significant impact on the microbiome of wastewater treatment bioreactors.